Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:24):
Hello. I'm Gary Quinn and welcome to another episode of
Ready Set Live. My guest today is the talented Stephanie Powers,
an actress, writer, author, and passionate animal advocate. Stephanie's career
began at fifteen dancing for Jerome Robbins, and she went
on to star in over thirty one films. Her first
(00:46):
television series, The Girl from Uncle, marked a milestone in
US television history as the first hour long series featuring
a female in a leading role. Her television career includes
over twenty five mini series, two hundred episodic, thirty five
movies for television, and two television series Feather and Father,
(01:10):
and the long running Heart to Heart starring opposite Robert Wagner,
now celebrating its forty fifth anniversary. She's an accomplished screenwriter,
an author of One from the Heart, and the founder
of the William Holden Wildlife Foundation, focused on animal preservation.
Don't go away, I'll be right back with the extraordinary
(01:33):
Stephanie Powers. Welcome to the show. Stephanie, Thank you, Thank
you very much. Kearry, you know you have such a
trail blazer, let's say, energy of just continuing to work,
which it's your light, you know, and I tell that
(01:54):
with people, you know, your success is based on your energy.
Was it as a fifteen year old going to audition
for Jerome? That was it an intention? Or you said
I'm going to get into showbiz? Or you were dancing?
Was what was the cataligy?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
We would never dare to call him Jerome?
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Oh okay, mister, yes.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Absolutely yes.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
First of all, let me try to explain that that
the Hollywood I grew up with.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Was a very small town, and people were connected to
the movie industry.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
They were connected in many many ways, not the least
of which was for their children. They wanted their children
to grow up with certain grace, and especially girls. And
so if there was a great ballet teacher from the
Ballet Ruth in Monte Carlo, everybody wanted their daughters to
(02:56):
go there. And in fact, even the professional would take
ballet class at Michelle Penaie's. So in our little ballet
class with three girls, I think I was about six
or seven something like that, and there's a kind.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Of wonderful photograph of.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Our ballet class. Who knew in those days that all
of us would wind up married to Robert Wagner In
one way or another, because the class consisted of Natalie Wood,
Jill Saint John and me somewhere down there.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Wow. And then as you progressed, what.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Was Oh, no, I should finish my thoughts.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Oh so, So the idea that going to dance school
would lead to auditions was something kind of natural for
that sort of millieu, and they would post I was
by then, I was studying jazz at the American School
(04:09):
of Dance, which was on Hollywood Boulevard before they built
the Kodak Center and or what's it called now its I.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Kept remember the Adobe, a Doolby Adobe Center.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
So they used to post all of the auditions for
traveling shows and movies and performances that were meeting dancers.
And I was very tall for my age. I was
as about as tall as I am now. When I
was fifteen, I just shot up like a rocket. So
(04:50):
one day there was a I had a girlfriend who
was seventeen, and she.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Could draw.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
She had a car, and so the two of us
used to go on auditions together, and we were both
very tall, and I guess they never looked at dancers faces.
They only look at their bodies and their movement, so
they kept us used to keep us to the end,
and then the girl with the clipboard would come around
and say how old are you? To get very upset
(05:25):
because of course we had stayed till the end and
he missed two other dancers, so we were then told
to exit very quickly. And that in that same vein
we went to an audition for the movie West Side Story.
There were hundreds of dancers that day, and as it was,
(05:48):
we were both called back to come to more auditions.
I wound up doing sixteen dance auditions and three screen
tests before they asked if I could get my working papers,
my working permit and get a parent or guardian to
(06:09):
come with.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Me to start rehearsals.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
So I was all of a sudden a part of
this extraordinary production.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
I was a jet. I had the part of Velma, and.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
After oh most about two and a half months of rehearsals,
they realized that I was not old enough to work
all the necessary hours, so I was replaced. I was
replaced by the wonderful dancer Carol DeAndrea, who had done
(06:47):
the part before and was quite.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Right I was way too young for that part. Anyway,
it was an.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Extraordinary experience that I wouldn't trade for the world.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Every once in a while I see some of.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
The dancers, the old West Side Story alumni, and George
Karas is a very good friend.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
So we see each other and keep that flame going.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
But it wasn't that unusual that I should have gone
to an audition.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Wow, But I think dancers have this innate you know,
if you look at their background. You know Anne Bancroft,
you know Shirley McLain. I met Tony Basil at the
health food store. She's still dancing like crazy, amazing every day.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
She has that studio behind her house.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yes, So how was it that you got into the
studio system, because I find the studio system so interesting.
You were at the tail end, right.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Yes, I was in the studio system was in the
twilight of its existence because in nineteen fine the United
States government deemed that the motion picture industry was a
monopoly because they made the product, they distributed the product,
and they exhibited the product, sort.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Of like Apple, if you know what I.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Yes, yes, it doesn't get So did they just Stephanie,
they signed you and said okay, you're going to be
in No?
Speaker 2 (08:25):
No, I was.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
I did a little when I was fired from West
Side Story, I met a young actor, director writer who
was making an independent film. His name was Tom Laughlin.
He then became rather famous because of a movie that
he did called Billy Jack. But he liked to work
with people who hadn't had much experience, and that was me,
(08:49):
So he asked me to read for him, and then
we went away and did this movie in Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin,
and was shown around most particularly to buy Tom's great patron, who.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Was Jerry Waald, a very large producer man.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
He was a very well known producer at twentieth Century Fox.
So I was invited to go to twentieth Century Fox
and join the contract players in the acting classes. I
was also then invited to go to MGM and join
the contract players in the acting classes, and to Columbia
Pictures to do the same thing. Because in those days,
(09:33):
you as a young actor, would go to these wonderful
classes that you would prepare a scene for the casting
department to see, and if they liked the scene, they
would order a screen test and then they would show
that to everybody at the studio, and if you were
they were interested in you, they would offer you a
(09:54):
contract and that's how it worked. So given that I
was late for class, I said, Columbia. I was running
through the hallways where they had some swinging doors, and
I pushed a door right into the face of a
man who was wearing the same sunglasses that I was. Now,
these sunglasses were very special because they had been the
(10:17):
absolute last thing, chikh thing on the French or of
the era at that moment. And in those days, if
something was that moment, the chic thing of the moment,
it would take about three years to get to California.
So he said to me, And I was wearing the
same glasses.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
So he said to me, where did you get those glasses?
Speaker 3 (10:39):
And I said, well, my friend was driving in the
Monte Carlo rally and he brought them to me. I said,
where did you get yours?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
And he said, I was at the Monte Carlo. He
said what do you do here?
Speaker 3 (10:55):
And I said, well, I'm an actress. He said, really,
are you any good?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Nobody's ever asked me that.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Before, and I said, well, sure, sure, yes i am.
He said, well you should come and see me.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I'm making a movie here and I said, well, I'm
late for class.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
He said, all right, come after class, I'm on the
fourth floor and my name is Blake Edwards.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Wow, that was the beginning.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
He asked me to screen test for as the Leramic's
sister in a movie that he was doing at Columbia
called Experiment in Terror, and I was put under contract.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Stephanie, that meeting with Blake Edwards, I think is spiritual synchronicity,
you know. I think if you go looking in your
timeline and you say this door opened, this one closed
being fired from you know, westside, yes, and then all
of a sudden one exactly. So that must have been
(12:02):
such an incredible time in the studio system to really learn,
you know, they were teaching you all kinds of things, right,
not only acting diction.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Well they didn't they they had that all available too, okay,
But they put me to work straight away.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
They just you know, I did fifteen motion pictures, three
pictures a year for five years.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Do lot work.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
You were busy now along the way. Did you find
that because you were a woman, was there any kind
of cat fights or animosity of other people who were
jealous that you were or was it a different time then?
Speaker 3 (12:46):
No, I didn't experience that, all right, I didn't experience
for casting couch. I didn't experience. Everything was very pleasant.
I was a kid, you know. Some people were rather
nice and to end and patient with me.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
So moving fast forward, because I know we have a
time element. It's the forty fifth anniversary of Heart to Heart.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Well it's a part of the anniversary of when we
did the pilot. Okay, so its existence in total is
forty five years ago.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
It sprouted wings forty five years.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Ago, and so many people have loved that series. It
just goes on. I mean that experience. Would you sum
it up in a few words, what would you say?
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Well, it was one of the most important experiences of
my life and my career. It came at a very
interesting time, I think for both of us, for both
of RJ and myself. And it doesn't always follow suit
that if you know somebody, you're going to have a
rapport working together. But we were just really lucky. So
(13:55):
whatever it was, I'd like to bottle.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
It and I would make a.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
During these times that you were working, is there a
practice you did meditation or you sort of not let
anything affect you because you know, sometimes people can you know,
be strange to newcomers or but you weren't a newcomer.
You were someone whose.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
I wasn't a newcomer by then.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
No, I had quite a lot of experience under my belt.
And no, it was you know, we both grew up
in the business. We understood what the responsibilities were. We
understood that we were being paid to hit our marks
and know our lines and correct show up on time,
and we did. Both RJ and myself were raised in
(14:42):
the movie business from teenage. He was nineteen when he
went under contract to twentieth Century Fox, and.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
I was sixteen.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
I had my seventeenth birthday on the movie Experiment in Terror.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Is there anything, Stephanie, that you do as a ritual
in your day? You know, something that you meditate you?
Speaker 3 (15:07):
You know, I'm too busy, and meditation is wonderful at
certain times in your life.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
I am very involved.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
With well, my horses, and with the operations of the
William Holden Wildlife Foundation. I'm the founder and the president
and the chief how should I say fundraiser? Okay, so
it's quite an involved operation. We have an education center
(15:37):
in Kenya attached to It was formerly attached to the
Mount Kenyon Game Ranch, which Bill created in nineteen fifty
nine before anybody had the word conservation in their vocabulary.
Bill was a visionary when it came to wildlife in
(16:00):
Kenya and the notion that the numbers of herds would
be greatly diminished as the population the human population began
to encroach upon the wildlife areas, and that he had
this extraordinary vision that was way ahead of time of
his times. Yes, so understanding that in doing in building this.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Game ranch, he.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Was preserving thirty seven species of East African wildlife in
nucleus breeding herds.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
And the one thing that Bill wanted to do more.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Than anything else was he wanted to build a wildlife
education center for local people so they could come and
learn about their flora and fauna and why it was
important for them to understand the food chain and its
importance to their own existence, so that you didn't just
say don't cut that tree down, but you explain why
(17:03):
and the entire ripple effect of cutting that tree down.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
So we served. So after Bill's.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Death in nineteen eighty one, I created the William Holden
Wildlife Foundation to actually bring to fruition what Bill had
imagined all those years ago. While he was alive, he
walked the territory, the fifteen acres which on which he
wanted to build the education center. So we knew a
(17:34):
great deal about what he wanted to do, and after
he died, I put it into works, into the works,
and today we service and have for many many years.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
We got our IRS status as a public.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Charity in nineteen eighty two, and today and for many years,
as I said, we are serving about eleven thousand students
year in our main education center, and then we have
an outreach program in seven locations where we deal with
another six and a half.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Thousand people on a continual basis. Our mission statement is wildlife.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Conservation through education and alternatives to habitat destruction. Now that
second half of the mission statement is what occupies me
more than ever, because if we want to as individually
or collectively try to do something about climate change and
(18:36):
about the disasters that climate that the climate change is
creating on our planet, in our cities, in our.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Backyards.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Now we know because of the fires in Los Angeles how.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Virulent it all really is.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
So we decided to dedicate ourselves to the regeneration of
areas that had been over chemicalized through poor farming methods
and bring it back to life, to provide habitat for
the full spectrum of flora and fauna and biodiversity, as
(19:21):
well as with subsistence farmers who need all the land
they can get to just feed their themselves and have
some kind of a cash crop to sell. But since
they overuse the chemicals, they burn out their land.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
So it's for them.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
They thought it was unrecoverable, but we show them ways
that they can recover it and that the land can
provide them with not only constant food, but the ability
to sequester carbon and to sequester moisture. So it's a
technique which we have actively been pursuing in seven locations
(20:04):
where now it's UH where we've become an affiliated with
a number of universities in the United States and in England.
Uh to an invited some prospects in UH. We're studying
these sorts of techniques in UH as their a thesis
(20:28):
for their master's degree or their PhD. So we've got
two master's degree candidates that will be coming to us
in the fall.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Stephanie, do you actually the animals that are in the sanctuary?
Are they actually bread or is it just the saving
of the species. How does that work if if you
know there's a species that's endangered, Well.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Well, first of all, you know there there's a game department,
and there are game reserves which the government runs. These
animals that are still on the Mount Kendy Game Ranch,
which is now a conservancy, are generational the results of
generational breeding, captive breeding in the safety the safety of this.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Wonderful game ranch.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
But that's not mine anymore, right, it now belongs to
a new generation. Uh.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
And it's an.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
African businessman who bought the game ranch and is carrying
on with some of the breeding programs.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Wow, what a what a brilliant ride. You've been working
on all these projects. If you had an opportunity on
a bucket list of something you haven't done yet, what
would that be?
Speaker 2 (21:55):
It was hard to say.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
I've I I just like to continue doing all the
things that I've been doing. Unfortunately, many of the places
that I've been are no longer safe to go.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
To, so I can't go back there, but I would
like to continue there. I have always wanted to.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Egyptology was always a passionate mine and I as a child,
I used to read about all.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
The discoveries, the digs that were going on in Egypt,
Upper and Lower Egypt.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
And now the Egyptian government and the Egyptian Department of
Archaeology has produced some extraordinary professors and some extraordinary scientists
who are doing major work at the necropolis's that have
been discovered quite recently.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
And I want to go out and join some of
those digs.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
I like to get I like to get my fingers dirty,
my nails are short.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I prefer them that way.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Well, I am so happy for you, and I know
that great things are coming, even better opportunities, and you're
just a bright light in the universe, and I wish
you great Gary.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
I would like to mention to your listeners, viewers, fans
that there's more information to be had at our website.
Yes www and then the acronym for William Golden Wildlife Foundation,
which he is of course WHWF dot org.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
And I hope that you will look.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
You who are watching, please look at our website and
see if there's anything that interesting.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
We've got quite a lot of.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Things going on wonderful. Stuph Well, thank you so much
for spending this time with me, and I know everything
is going to be wonderful. In Africa for you and
all the wonderful things that are coming to you.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Thank you, your mouth to God's ear.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
I'm Gary Quinn. Thank you for joining me on this
special edition. Until next time, be well,
Hello. I'm Gary Quinn and welcome to another episode of
Ready Set Live. My guest today is the talented Stephanie Powers,
an actress, writer, author, and passionate animal advocate. Stephanie's career
began at fifteen dancing for Jerome Robbins, and she went
on to star in over thirty one films. Her first
(00:46):
television series, The Girl from Uncle, marked a milestone in
US television history as the first hour long series featuring
a female in a leading role. Her television career includes
over twenty five mini series, two hundred episodic, thirty five
movies for television, and two television series Feather and Father,
(01:10):
and the long running Heart to Heart starring opposite Robert Wagner,
now celebrating its forty fifth anniversary. She's an accomplished screenwriter,
an author of One from the Heart, and the founder
of the William Holden Wildlife Foundation, focused on animal preservation.
Don't go away, I'll be right back with the extraordinary
(01:33):
Stephanie Powers. Welcome to the show. Stephanie, Thank you, Thank
you very much. Kearry, you know you have such a
trail blazer, let's say, energy of just continuing to work,
which it's your light, you know, and I tell that
(01:54):
with people, you know, your success is based on your energy.
Was it as a fifteen year old going to audition
for Jerome? That was it an intention? Or you said
I'm going to get into showbiz? Or you were dancing?
Was what was the cataligy?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
We would never dare to call him Jerome?
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Oh okay, mister, yes.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Absolutely yes.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
First of all, let me try to explain that that
the Hollywood I grew up with.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Was a very small town, and people were connected to
the movie industry.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
They were connected in many many ways, not the least
of which was for their children. They wanted their children
to grow up with certain grace, and especially girls. And
so if there was a great ballet teacher from the
Ballet Ruth in Monte Carlo, everybody wanted their daughters to
(02:56):
go there. And in fact, even the professional would take
ballet class at Michelle Penaie's. So in our little ballet
class with three girls, I think I was about six
or seven something like that, and there's a kind.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Of wonderful photograph of.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Our ballet class. Who knew in those days that all
of us would wind up married to Robert Wagner In
one way or another, because the class consisted of Natalie Wood,
Jill Saint John and me somewhere down there.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Wow. And then as you progressed, what.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Was Oh, no, I should finish my thoughts.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Oh so, So the idea that going to dance school
would lead to auditions was something kind of natural for
that sort of millieu, and they would post I was
by then, I was studying jazz at the American School
(04:09):
of Dance, which was on Hollywood Boulevard before they built
the Kodak Center and or what's it called now its I.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Kept remember the Adobe, a Doolby Adobe Center.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
So they used to post all of the auditions for
traveling shows and movies and performances that were meeting dancers.
And I was very tall for my age. I was
as about as tall as I am now. When I
was fifteen, I just shot up like a rocket. So
(04:50):
one day there was a I had a girlfriend who
was seventeen, and she.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Could draw.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
She had a car, and so the two of us
used to go on auditions together, and we were both
very tall, and I guess they never looked at dancers faces.
They only look at their bodies and their movement, so
they kept us used to keep us to the end,
and then the girl with the clipboard would come around
and say how old are you? To get very upset
(05:25):
because of course we had stayed till the end and
he missed two other dancers, so we were then told
to exit very quickly. And that in that same vein
we went to an audition for the movie West Side Story.
There were hundreds of dancers that day, and as it was,
(05:48):
we were both called back to come to more auditions.
I wound up doing sixteen dance auditions and three screen
tests before they asked if I could get my working papers,
my working permit and get a parent or guardian to
(06:09):
come with.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Me to start rehearsals.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
So I was all of a sudden a part of
this extraordinary production.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
I was a jet. I had the part of Velma, and.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
After oh most about two and a half months of rehearsals,
they realized that I was not old enough to work
all the necessary hours, so I was replaced. I was
replaced by the wonderful dancer Carol DeAndrea, who had done
(06:47):
the part before and was quite.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Right I was way too young for that part. Anyway,
it was an.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Extraordinary experience that I wouldn't trade for the world.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Every once in a while I see some of.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
The dancers, the old West Side Story alumni, and George
Karas is a very good friend.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
So we see each other and keep that flame going.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
But it wasn't that unusual that I should have gone
to an audition.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Wow, But I think dancers have this innate you know,
if you look at their background. You know Anne Bancroft,
you know Shirley McLain. I met Tony Basil at the
health food store. She's still dancing like crazy, amazing every day.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
She has that studio behind her house.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yes, So how was it that you got into the
studio system, because I find the studio system so interesting.
You were at the tail end, right.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Yes, I was in the studio system was in the
twilight of its existence because in nineteen fine the United
States government deemed that the motion picture industry was a
monopoly because they made the product, they distributed the product,
and they exhibited the product, sort.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Of like Apple, if you know what I.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Yes, yes, it doesn't get So did they just Stephanie,
they signed you and said okay, you're going to be
in No?
Speaker 2 (08:25):
No, I was.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
I did a little when I was fired from West
Side Story, I met a young actor, director writer who
was making an independent film. His name was Tom Laughlin.
He then became rather famous because of a movie that
he did called Billy Jack. But he liked to work
with people who hadn't had much experience, and that was me,
(08:49):
So he asked me to read for him, and then
we went away and did this movie in Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin,
and was shown around most particularly to buy Tom's great patron, who.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Was Jerry Waald, a very large producer man.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
He was a very well known producer at twentieth Century Fox.
So I was invited to go to twentieth Century Fox
and join the contract players in the acting classes. I
was also then invited to go to MGM and join
the contract players in the acting classes, and to Columbia
Pictures to do the same thing. Because in those days,
(09:33):
you as a young actor, would go to these wonderful
classes that you would prepare a scene for the casting
department to see, and if they liked the scene, they
would order a screen test and then they would show
that to everybody at the studio, and if you were
they were interested in you, they would offer you a
(09:54):
contract and that's how it worked. So given that I
was late for class, I said, Columbia. I was running
through the hallways where they had some swinging doors, and
I pushed a door right into the face of a
man who was wearing the same sunglasses that I was. Now,
these sunglasses were very special because they had been the
(10:17):
absolute last thing, chikh thing on the French or of
the era at that moment. And in those days, if
something was that moment, the chic thing of the moment,
it would take about three years to get to California.
So he said to me, And I was wearing the
same glasses.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
So he said to me, where did you get those glasses?
Speaker 3 (10:39):
And I said, well, my friend was driving in the
Monte Carlo rally and he brought them to me. I said,
where did you get yours?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
And he said, I was at the Monte Carlo. He
said what do you do here?
Speaker 3 (10:55):
And I said, well, I'm an actress. He said, really,
are you any good?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Nobody's ever asked me that.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Before, and I said, well, sure, sure, yes i am.
He said, well you should come and see me.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I'm making a movie here and I said, well, I'm
late for class.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
He said, all right, come after class, I'm on the
fourth floor and my name is Blake Edwards.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Wow, that was the beginning.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
He asked me to screen test for as the Leramic's
sister in a movie that he was doing at Columbia
called Experiment in Terror, and I was put under contract.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Stephanie, that meeting with Blake Edwards, I think is spiritual synchronicity,
you know. I think if you go looking in your
timeline and you say this door opened, this one closed
being fired from you know, westside, yes, and then all
of a sudden one exactly. So that must have been
(12:02):
such an incredible time in the studio system to really learn,
you know, they were teaching you all kinds of things, right,
not only acting diction.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Well they didn't they they had that all available too, okay,
But they put me to work straight away.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
They just you know, I did fifteen motion pictures, three
pictures a year for five years.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Do lot work.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
You were busy now along the way. Did you find
that because you were a woman, was there any kind
of cat fights or animosity of other people who were
jealous that you were or was it a different time then?
Speaker 3 (12:46):
No, I didn't experience that, all right, I didn't experience
for casting couch. I didn't experience. Everything was very pleasant.
I was a kid, you know. Some people were rather
nice and to end and patient with me.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
So moving fast forward, because I know we have a
time element. It's the forty fifth anniversary of Heart to Heart.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Well it's a part of the anniversary of when we
did the pilot. Okay, so its existence in total is
forty five years ago.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
It sprouted wings forty five years.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Ago, and so many people have loved that series. It
just goes on. I mean that experience. Would you sum
it up in a few words, what would you say?
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Well, it was one of the most important experiences of
my life and my career. It came at a very
interesting time, I think for both of us, for both
of RJ and myself. And it doesn't always follow suit
that if you know somebody, you're going to have a
rapport working together. But we were just really lucky. So
(13:55):
whatever it was, I'd like to bottle.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
It and I would make a.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
During these times that you were working, is there a
practice you did meditation or you sort of not let
anything affect you because you know, sometimes people can you know,
be strange to newcomers or but you weren't a newcomer.
You were someone whose.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
I wasn't a newcomer by then.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
No, I had quite a lot of experience under my belt.
And no, it was you know, we both grew up
in the business. We understood what the responsibilities were. We
understood that we were being paid to hit our marks
and know our lines and correct show up on time,
and we did. Both RJ and myself were raised in
(14:42):
the movie business from teenage. He was nineteen when he
went under contract to twentieth Century Fox, and.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
I was sixteen.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
I had my seventeenth birthday on the movie Experiment in Terror.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Is there anything, Stephanie, that you do as a ritual
in your day? You know, something that you meditate you?
Speaker 3 (15:07):
You know, I'm too busy, and meditation is wonderful at
certain times in your life.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
I am very involved.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
With well, my horses, and with the operations of the
William Holden Wildlife Foundation. I'm the founder and the president
and the chief how should I say fundraiser? Okay, so
it's quite an involved operation. We have an education center
(15:37):
in Kenya attached to It was formerly attached to the
Mount Kenyon Game Ranch, which Bill created in nineteen fifty
nine before anybody had the word conservation in their vocabulary.
Bill was a visionary when it came to wildlife in
(16:00):
Kenya and the notion that the numbers of herds would
be greatly diminished as the population the human population began
to encroach upon the wildlife areas, and that he had
this extraordinary vision that was way ahead of time of
his times. Yes, so understanding that in doing in building this.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Game ranch, he.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Was preserving thirty seven species of East African wildlife in
nucleus breeding herds.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
And the one thing that Bill wanted to do more.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Than anything else was he wanted to build a wildlife
education center for local people so they could come and
learn about their flora and fauna and why it was
important for them to understand the food chain and its
importance to their own existence, so that you didn't just
say don't cut that tree down, but you explain why
(17:03):
and the entire ripple effect of cutting that tree down.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
So we served. So after Bill's.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Death in nineteen eighty one, I created the William Holden
Wildlife Foundation to actually bring to fruition what Bill had
imagined all those years ago. While he was alive, he
walked the territory, the fifteen acres which on which he
wanted to build the education center. So we knew a
(17:34):
great deal about what he wanted to do, and after
he died, I put it into works, into the works,
and today we service and have for many many years.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
We got our IRS status as a public.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Charity in nineteen eighty two, and today and for many years,
as I said, we are serving about eleven thousand students
year in our main education center, and then we have
an outreach program in seven locations where we deal with
another six and a half.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Thousand people on a continual basis. Our mission statement is wildlife.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Conservation through education and alternatives to habitat destruction. Now that
second half of the mission statement is what occupies me
more than ever, because if we want to as individually
or collectively try to do something about climate change and
(18:36):
about the disasters that climate that the climate change is
creating on our planet, in our cities, in our.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Backyards.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Now we know because of the fires in Los Angeles how.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Virulent it all really is.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
So we decided to dedicate ourselves to the regeneration of
areas that had been over chemicalized through poor farming methods
and bring it back to life, to provide habitat for
the full spectrum of flora and fauna and biodiversity, as
(19:21):
well as with subsistence farmers who need all the land
they can get to just feed their themselves and have
some kind of a cash crop to sell. But since
they overuse the chemicals, they burn out their land.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
So it's for them.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
They thought it was unrecoverable, but we show them ways
that they can recover it and that the land can
provide them with not only constant food, but the ability
to sequester carbon and to sequester moisture. So it's a
technique which we have actively been pursuing in seven locations
(20:04):
where now it's UH where we've become an affiliated with
a number of universities in the United States and in England.
Uh to an invited some prospects in UH. We're studying
these sorts of techniques in UH as their a thesis
(20:28):
for their master's degree or their PhD. So we've got
two master's degree candidates that will be coming to us
in the fall.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Stephanie, do you actually the animals that are in the sanctuary?
Are they actually bread or is it just the saving
of the species. How does that work if if you
know there's a species that's endangered, Well.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Well, first of all, you know there there's a game department,
and there are game reserves which the government runs. These
animals that are still on the Mount Kendy Game Ranch,
which is now a conservancy, are generational the results of
generational breeding, captive breeding in the safety the safety of this.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Wonderful game ranch.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
But that's not mine anymore, right, it now belongs to
a new generation. Uh.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
And it's an.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
African businessman who bought the game ranch and is carrying
on with some of the breeding programs.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Wow, what a what a brilliant ride. You've been working
on all these projects. If you had an opportunity on
a bucket list of something you haven't done yet, what
would that be?
Speaker 2 (21:55):
It was hard to say.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
I've I I just like to continue doing all the
things that I've been doing. Unfortunately, many of the places
that I've been are no longer safe to go.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
To, so I can't go back there, but I would
like to continue there. I have always wanted to.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Egyptology was always a passionate mine and I as a child,
I used to read about all.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
The discoveries, the digs that were going on in Egypt,
Upper and Lower Egypt.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
And now the Egyptian government and the Egyptian Department of
Archaeology has produced some extraordinary professors and some extraordinary scientists
who are doing major work at the necropolis's that have
been discovered quite recently.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
And I want to go out and join some of
those digs.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
I like to get I like to get my fingers dirty,
my nails are short.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I prefer them that way.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Well, I am so happy for you, and I know
that great things are coming, even better opportunities, and you're
just a bright light in the universe, and I wish
you great Gary.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
I would like to mention to your listeners, viewers, fans
that there's more information to be had at our website.
Yes www and then the acronym for William Golden Wildlife Foundation,
which he is of course WHWF dot org.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
And I hope that you will look.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
You who are watching, please look at our website and
see if there's anything that interesting.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
We've got quite a lot of.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Things going on wonderful. Stuph Well, thank you so much
for spending this time with me, and I know everything
is going to be wonderful. In Africa for you and
all the wonderful things that are coming to you.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Thank you, your mouth to God's ear.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
I'm Gary Quinn. Thank you for joining me on this
special edition. Until next time, be well,
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