July 30, 2025 • 50 mins
Today Alison is joined by Pamela Roylance, Susan Mccray and Stan Ivar to talk Love Letters!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Love from the.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Groom.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I'm the Alice and Aringraham Show.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
I am Alison Aringham, although some of you may know
me as Evil and Ellielsen. I am, thankfully tonight Alison Aringraham.
And this is the Alice at Aringham Show. And here
in the Alice at Ingham Show, we talk about things
that make us feel good, the movies and the television
shows that made us feel good, and the people who
made them, and people who are doing things now to
make the world a better and more interesting place. And
(00:43):
I got I got three of them. I got three
of them tonight to qualify in all of those categories.
And you know I always get hysterical and excited when
I have friends on. And I have three of them,
I'm like, you know, Okay.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Where do I even begin?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Okay, So you watch the show, so you remember at
the end, you know, the lovely Tarters came.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
In and took over the Ingles House.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
The beautiful Pamela roy Lance and stan Ivar came in
the Carters there they are, aren't they cute? And they
took over. And you know, if you're really up on
things in the show, you know that our show was
cast by the brilliant Susan McCrae. Yes, that's the right
way they kid McGray, producer, you're figuring.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
It out right. Okay, the show love Letters?
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Right?
Speaker 3 (01:22):
You love to show love Letters that everybody does love it.
Brace yourselves Okay, Pam roy Lance and Stan Ivar are.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Doing Love Letters. Yes at the White Fire Theater in
Sherman Oaks. This is actually happening. I'm like, I gues,
I have my tickets through open eck. This is going
to be epic and I have both of them. And
Susan McCrae here, dive dive, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Hi, Allison Loh.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
The goodness you now, Susan, You're you're direct this and
you're the one you're to get what this is the thing?
You started this idea? What possessed you to say, I
know what I want to do. I want to do
love Letters and directed I'm gonna get stand and Pam
to do love Letters?
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Why? How what happened?
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Well? They were so great on Little House. I figure
if I can cast them from Little House, they could
cast them on Love Letters. What else is there? Right?
Speaker 3 (02:24):
You know what you're doing now? Is this the first
theatrical thing you've directed. I mean, you've ben to cas.
I'm going to read the list of stuff you've cast
because somebody's gonna believe me if I was this the
first thing you've directed.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
No. I actually directed another play called The Runner Stumbles, Oh,
which was quite dramatic, and they made a big movie
out of it, but it didn't do very well. It
was with Dick Van Dyke, believe it or not. Yes, yeah,
and so that was the first. But this is really
(02:58):
going to be special for me because I'm working with
two terrific people who are very dear friends of mine,
and I'm having a great time.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
This is going to be absolutely for these You yet.
Love Letters a show written by A. J. Gurney and
it's been going on forever since like eighty nine. Literally
the entire world has, apparently other than me, has done
Love Letters. You guys are in great company. Let's see
Richard Thomas with Swoosey Kurtz. We had Elaine Stretch, we
did it. William Hurt Treat, WILLIAMS Marshall, Mason, Christopher Reef
(03:31):
sid for me, Christopher Beef did Love Letters.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Everyone has done it. Joan van Ark, Elizabeth Montgomery, Diana Ring.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Okay, all of these people. You are absolutely in good
company here. How excited are you, Pam and Stan? Because
I just want to.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Like, it's Pam and stand. How excited are you to
be doing this?
Speaker 4 (03:50):
I am ladies first, ma'am.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
Thank you Stan, because I went ahead and went first because.
Speaker 6 (03:57):
I know what a gentleman you are. I love rehearsals.
It's wonderful being with Stan again, having Susan direct us.
The play is beautiful, So just that alone is very
much fun to do. But yeah, to be working, to
be kind of back in this old setting, to know
that so many of our friends are going to support
(04:19):
us and come out and see us, it's just like
old Home Week.
Speaker 5 (04:22):
I'm thrilled, really thrilled. Stan.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
What about you?
Speaker 4 (04:27):
The same thing here. First, I want to apologize to
the audience. My video is not working on my computer,
so I want to apologize for that. But yeah, this
is with Susan and Pam. It's like stepping back into
some great, great pair of old shoes that just fit
so comfortably and all of that. And we're having a
good time enjoying the rehearsals, and the jitters are starting
(04:50):
to come here since we're going to be opening in
about a month.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Wow, it's you guys who've done I mean, I love
actually using the photos. So if you really want to
see Stan what he really looks like live, you're going
to have to buy a ticket to the show.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
That's clearly.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
But you guys have done a ton of stuff, you know,
since Little House what cracks me up? As you guys
both became soap opera soap opera divas as it were,
you were king and Queen of the soaps. Pam, which
soap were you on? You were a nice girl, and
you were a nice girl.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
You were a mean person.
Speaker 6 (05:23):
Yes, I was a very nice girl. I think that
was a little too nice to survive it. I played
Sandy Horton, and so I was one of the Hortons,
and that was the nucleus family of the show, and
you could not fire them. So they sent me off
to Africa to do some doctoring over there, and they
never brought me back.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
But oh dear, she was lost.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
She got lost in the jungle saving people.
Speaker 6 (05:51):
I think I was a little more suited to the
prairie life than I was to the very steamy, sexy,
hot soap opera life.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
You know.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
I just think I didn't fit. I wasn't a fit.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Now since your first time, you and Stan working together
since the show.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Hey, I'm be careful what you say.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
Don't tell a lot of secrets. Yes it is, I
really haven't. We haven't worked together all these years.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah. Do what I've done, Yes, do what I've done.
I've brought them together.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Again, Yes you have. I'm so glad this is good,
you and the whole prairie. I mean, we're all, we're
all coming. Everyone is coming to see this for people
who don't realize.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Susan, So who is this McCray? Oh yeah, Okase, she's
married Tom MCCRAYE. Okay, cast cast me cast.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Let's let's go down mist just it.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Susans McCray has been the casting person before besides the
Happy Days, Yeah, Hello, Happy Days, la Vernon, Shirley.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
High, Chaparral, the Odd Couple of course, Father Murphy and
Hi would have the Hawaii five. Oh what the she
cas just everything. There's just a chunk of time in
Hollywood where it's like.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
With you because he says it great, there's all for
God's sake, I.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Gotta I'm terrible on that.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
And when she can't the first movie starring Ow was Yes,
you can, but you you cast everything I did.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I've been very, very fortunate. I have cast some wonderful shows,
but the most wonderful ones are with Michael and I
got to say that we did some beautiful movies of
the Week, and we did some beautiful series episodes, and
I'm very proud of it. I really am.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
It was fantastic. Now. I noticed in an interview you
talked about working.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
With the kids in Christ with Little House, too many
children and you finding that they were all perfectly cast.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
It's like, okay, perfect Laura bry You said.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
The one thing she talked about, because you don't act,
just be yourself, which was a running theme on Little House,
don't bring in a bunch of stuff, just but be yourself. Now,
in my case with my characters, should I really have
been be myself?
Speaker 2 (08:03):
I hope?
Speaker 1 (08:03):
How should I take that?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
I don't want you to be yourself? No? No, no,
that would have been really disaster. I think. No. Alison,
you were fabulous in that part. You really were. You
were just terrific and everybody adored you. I mean, thank you.
How can you not?
Speaker 4 (08:25):
You were natural?
Speaker 1 (08:27):
It was just kind of letting it out.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
You know, you had a bad day and you just
kind of let it up.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
This Millie Olsen came from there.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Stan, you were on a soap opera two for a
long time. Which shape were you on?
Speaker 4 (08:39):
I was on Days? Days of our lives?
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Life?
Speaker 4 (08:42):
But I was heavy?
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Were you bad?
Speaker 4 (08:45):
I was bad? I was bad. I was murdered, I
was buried. I did the first interracial bed scene on Days.
I was a bad boy.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Nice nice, So you don't get on Get this now now?
With love Letters Office is much nicer, but it's kind
of heavy.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
I mean, it's a romantic couple, but it's very much
the long years and the separations and the things that
really go on between people over their course their entire lives.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
It's true, it's a very It has some very sentimental
feelings to it. It has things that people usually will
say in their private lives or how they feel, but
they don't express them as well as some of the
dialogue in this. The writer is just so sensational. He
(09:36):
writes what people think and how they feel about others.
And I think that's what really grabbed me more than
anything is. I said to myself as I read it,
I said, you know, I felt that way or I
said that a long time ago, and it's true. That's
(09:58):
why it's so relatable to a lot an audience.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
It's very realistic. There isn't anyone in the audience that's
not going to feel something in that play that's going
to relate to their life. And then yeah, it's something.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
We identify with. I mean, of course, you know, throwing
it back again the Prairie. Why everybody loves us and
the Prairie is people that they can identify with. All
of our characters were very realistic people, and I think
it's certainly Pam and stand It really kind of put
it out there as being very real, so it wasn't actory,
(10:33):
and I think that resonated with people.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Is why we're all. People are still watching our show
fifty fifty one years later, twenty four hours a day.
It's seventy week.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
From what I understand, more people are watching it now
because of Gable and all than they were originally when
it was first airing.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Yeah, they came up with something. It was like so
many million man hours of viewing.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Time just it's just because it's on.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
There's a channel called Roku that literally runs Little House
in the Prairie twenty four hours a day, seven days
a week.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Right, that's right. Wow, every generation knows Little House on
the Prairie.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Now, Pam, you were actually a fan of the show
before you got on it.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
That was the craziest thing.
Speaker 5 (11:16):
I was.
Speaker 6 (11:17):
I was teaching high school and I'd go home and
watch the reruns at three o'clock, and it was a
big deal. I wanted to be on this show, or
the Waltons or anything Walt Disney or Eight is Enough,
which was popular at the time.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
And so to have a dream come true that was
a really big deal.
Speaker 6 (11:36):
And to have such a lovely part, you know, and
then all these years later, to have it become what
it is now with the relationships between those of us
in the cast who do go meet fans and the
way fans treat us, the cast relationship that we have now,
it's just amazing. And to still have a relationship with Susan,
(12:00):
because I don't think I really have that opportunity Susan
when we were busy working the show, partly because we've stayed.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
In our lane, right, we just we were the actor.
We showed up, prepared it our thing.
Speaker 6 (12:14):
But now to know you as a friend and to
be able to see another side of you.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
It's just been lovely. You know, we're really and you
know miss Allison and Stan and Pam. There are a
lot of shows that say, oh, we're family, We're really
like family, But honestly, we really were like family. There's
no truer thing to say. We cared about each other.
(12:44):
When one of us was not feeling well, we'd call
our doctor and ask him, then, what can we do
to help so and so, or how can we get
I mean, Michael used to get on the phone and
call his doctor for a couple of the crew members
who weren't feeling well. It just was that kind of feeling,
and we cared. We cared about each other. And I
(13:05):
think it continued on when people get together for these
gatherings and the fans can see how we uh talk
with each other and get together and we laugh at
all the old stories and and all of the things.
(13:25):
And when one can't remember one thing, the other one
remember it, and it just goes on and.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
On, and there's more and more of us.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
You can't remember, right, well, what did I do yesterday?
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Either that or you make it up right.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
We're about to do that.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
This is true.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
I mean a lot of shows, say a lot of shows. Frankly,
the norm is people stop filming and never speak to
each other again.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
That's, sadly is the norm of Hollywood. I mean, oh
is it? The even the friends the reunion, they're having
the reunion and.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Everything, and every now and then they're like, Okay, when
did you less you get Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
And they're like oh talking, like coming that and talking years.
These people never see each other and this happens so much.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
So we're really unusual that we have this bond.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Or an unusual that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
And so we're just quite the bunch. We are quite
the bunch. Very new to see.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
Yeah, I was going to see.
Speaker 6 (14:27):
I think that's what's so beautiful about love Letters is
because Stan and I had a really great relationship on
the set, and it's carried over all these years, as
it has with many of the rest of us. So
to be put sitting side by side reading these old
love letters to each other, it just is a natural fit.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
It's it's comfortable.
Speaker 6 (14:48):
We are like a pair of old slippers just getting
back together.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
You know.
Speaker 6 (14:52):
It's just it's I couldn't I couldn't be happier and
and I think it really serves the play because we
have this incredible charismatic relationship with each other, and I
think the audience will feel that.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Well.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Many of the couples that they've gotten, even they got
huge stars, either barely knew each other, hadn't worked together
and certainly had not known each other for nearly fifty years,
had not spent years together as husband and wife in
the bed in the house with the children as husband
and wife from TV and then remain friends. They didn't
nobody's had this kind of relationship. They have not had
(15:29):
two actors together who actually were like this.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
I think this is going to be a whole other thing.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
You think so too.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
Oh No, it's great. Even during rehearsals. I mean, we're
loving it because it's bringing back old memories and old
just like I said, you feel like you're I'm in
there with friends, and I know that sounds funny, but
it's not. And it's a trust factor. I mean Susan
and obviously with Little House, Susan was the first person
(15:59):
we all met when we auditioned for a Little House,
So uh yeah, no, it's uh. When Susan called and said,
what do you think about love letters that I said,
I haven't heard about it. I'd never heard about never looked,
you know, at it. And she got a copy to
me and I said, wow, this would be fun to do,
really fun to do and h and all of that.
(16:22):
So yeah, no, we're enjoying it. Definitely enjoying it.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
I'm adding a few things too, Alison. Are you a
couple of unusual things with this? Uh? I'm actually adding
some beautiful music written by my father to certain parts
of this that really bring out the emotion. It's a
(16:47):
typical Michael Landon move.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
I was gonna say, that's Harry Michael. Well, this is
a great thing. Let me see what I could do
with this. Let me think her without aiment.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
The sentimentality comes out with a beautiful theme and and
that's what makes it lovely. And my mother is also
a part of this because she was an artist trait
and the character in the play is an artist.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Oh that's right, we see her painting.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
You're choosing her paint This is well, your dad was
a composer. And not everyone knows this. I mean the
singing Nune, I mean it's there's again like you had
this whole check of Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Where who's casting susanmc kray, Oh, who's doing the music?
Your dad?
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Well, my dad won an Oscar and was nominated four
different times for one and I'm very proud of them.
And to have his music with me means a lot
to me. It gives me that extra emotion that I
needed for this.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
So again it's these family tie ins.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
It's like what can we throw and so you have
this actual relationship ship between the actors and then you've
thrown in like, oh wait, I cond my mother's painting
in my father's music.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Who also were like known?
Speaker 3 (18:07):
I mean that's the thing. His father was famous as well.
And what was the other one who was singing?
Speaker 1 (18:12):
None?
Speaker 3 (18:12):
And there was like three other huge movies. And then
he did all the TV shows too.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Oh he did a lot intelligence But he did a
show called Fanny which was originally Broadway and then with
a beautiful film with Charles Boy and Maury Chavaie and
Leslie Kron and he one of my favorites for the
Fronds List story which was called Song Without End, So
(18:40):
I could go his career.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
But it's amazing, it's literally the composer of song with
that and so you managed to sneak in his music
and so yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
So it's like this dispatchwork of stuff. It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Now.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
One of the things people do now.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
With shows, fans will do when they love a couple
on a show is what they call spping, short for relationship,
where the fans will sometimes as a joke. It starts
out innocily, but sometimes it gets crazy. Star rooms go oh, well,
there's such a cute couple in the ship. They're totally dating,
and they will start this thing called shipping where they
(19:15):
will insist that these two actors, because the characters are
so good together, are having this huge relationship and are
secretly married, et cetera, et cetera. So is doing this
show going to start a whole shipping rumor with you too?
Speaker 5 (19:28):
I might start at myself.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
I thought we were already there.
Speaker 5 (19:37):
That's funny, Alison, I've never heard of that.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
That sounds like a lot of fun shipping.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
A couple of shows have had actually had trouble where
the fans were so insistent and that the two people
had to go, we're married.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
We're marry each other people, right.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
But they're so beautiful together, they clearly must be in love,
So yeah, shipping.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
And the funny thing.
Speaker 6 (19:59):
Is is that the two care are so opposite each other.
These people, this is like your This is like the
person you're attracted to, whether it's a best friend or
a sweetheart who's just driving you crazy. Here here, here,
but you just cannot separate. You're just so connected and
you fill in the void of each other's life and
(20:21):
you are there protecting each other.
Speaker 5 (20:24):
But you wonder how in the world how they remained together.
It was in the relationship that they're in for forty something.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Years, and they went they went through adolescents together, all
of that. So I mean it starts in the second
grade and goes all the way up.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Yeah, that's a perfect and it's just nobody has that
kind of bond. So I mean, the chemistry on stage
has just got to be like hilariously perfect, and.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
You guys are different to it.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
It's also funny because the characters, you know, being so
completely opposite into the universe. Yeah, you and Stan are
from totally different planets on paper anyway.
Speaker 5 (21:04):
Yeah. True.
Speaker 6 (21:05):
And in case, because I didn't know the play until
we read it, So in case anyone is watching your
show who's not read it, it is the two of
us reading each other's letters all these years, from second
grade all the way up to fifty five years old
or something like that.
Speaker 5 (21:22):
So it's a different setup.
Speaker 6 (21:25):
It's a it's a reader's theater sort of a thing.
You won't see us up on our feet moving around.
It's just the intimacy of two people reading these letters.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
And there's no there's no actual making out in this.
I'm sorry to disappointment wonders, I'm making it, but it
is this play. That's why they said they've gotten so
many people to do it, because people who are very busy,
if they're making films, they're on a series, they can say, yes,
I can fly in and do love letters because it's
we're basically sitting down and reading the letters and communicating
(21:56):
that way, and so it can be done.
Speaker 6 (22:00):
Yes, And the more you get into it, the richer
it becomes. And I mean, you could just read it,
but I think that that's not what Stan and I
could ever do, just because.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Of the relationship that we have.
Speaker 6 (22:13):
I don't want to start a shipping, but forty will
run with that if they want to.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
But yeah, it's it's very rich, a very rich piece
of language.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
The entire two hours almost two hours.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Yeah, I see that.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
It's very relatable. I mean, I can't express that enough.
It's extremely very relatable too, just about anyone.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Well, there's people are still doing it now, as they
said the starter back in the eighties when you look
at everyone's done it, and this is still an incredibly
popular show to do now in twenty twenty five. So
they've come up with something that clearly is eternal that
everyone can relate to.
Speaker 5 (22:56):
Yes, like what you said earlier with the Little House.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
You know, you know, nice to be able to sit
down and watch something well like television. How many theories
are there now, new theories now that that can be
like Little House where you can sit with your family
and enjoy something, well, you can sit with your family
and enjoy love letters and feel good. I mean there
(23:24):
are some little sad moments, but all in all, it's
something that people can be proud of to go and see.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Well, and it's so it's about love and it's so
Little House. Have you guys to take the deep dives?
Speaker 3 (23:40):
You say, well, yeah, we could just come in and
read this and do the reading thing, but too absolutely
of course, have rehearsals and actually make a whole show
of it and creatal relationship, because that's what little house
people do. We go all out. We don't just say, well,
well we'll just phone that in.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Is any one people of them are show don't phone
things in.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
And that's how we did it all by God. So
you got into how long have you been rehearsing? You've
been added a while now.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
About a month, about a little over a month, a
little over a month.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Yeah, and we'll be rehearsing the next uh, next week,
a few days and then we're going to go in
and uh to the theater and run through it and
see how it is. We've got an incredible production manager
who we all love and who we know and Allison,
(24:36):
you know him, Pod McCraw. He is a terrific man
and a terrific artist and a terrific talent. And I
think because he has become part of the family, it
is really a very nice feeling to know that we
can rely on him too.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
With with our little house gang, I'm never sure if
it's adopting or kidnapping, but we do have these people
get pulled in and yeah, Todd, absolutely, the Sieramondry Playhouse
did a whole thing where I did my show, when
I did Confessions and Seramondery, absolutely he was my guy there.
He has helped us on several of our Little House
events and has just been an incredible addition to our
(25:22):
crew as it were. And so when I heard that
he was also involved in this, Okay, well, the show's
going to go on.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Uh, he's completely gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
He is really a wonderful man and a wonderful friend.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
And we've got a pretty damn good director too. I
have to say, so I've hurt.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
This is.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
I adore doing theater. Now, Pam, have you been a
big theater person prior to this? I know you're like
queen you have a horror film slasher flick under your belt,
so yay, but what have you done?
Speaker 5 (25:58):
Do you know? That's where I started back in Portland, Oregon.
Speaker 6 (26:03):
And I can remember I did the soap opera right
after Little House, and I remember one of the actresses
I was in. Michael had called and he said, don't
sign any new contracts and I said, oh, I've been
on days for a month now, and he said it's okay,
it's NBC.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
We're NBC.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
I'll work it out.
Speaker 6 (26:22):
So I was doing Little House, I was doing Days,
and I was in a play at the Glendale Center Theater.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
So it was like all these things happening at once.
And I remember we.
Speaker 6 (26:31):
Were running late on Days one night and I was
trying to decide if I should call the understudy and
have her take over for me at the theater, and
then all of a sudden, they cut me loose and said.
Speaker 5 (26:42):
You can go.
Speaker 6 (26:43):
And I remember this very popular actress on that show
saying do you think it's important for an actress or
an actor to do theater? And my jaw dropped over
because I thought we all came from theater. Didn't occur
to me that you would ever come to Hollywood and
(27:03):
not know your fundamentals of acting.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
So yes, that's where I cut my teeth.
Speaker 6 (27:10):
My first play, I was in the sixth grade and
our social studies teacher wrote a play called the Sun
God and I played the.
Speaker 5 (27:16):
Lead, which was a boy. I played the part of
a boy.
Speaker 6 (27:20):
Yes, so yeah, so, and then it just went on
and on all through high school, all through college.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
It was my main thing.
Speaker 6 (27:28):
And it really wasn't until just before I moved down
to LA that I started getting on camera up in
Portland in the local commercials, local industrial films, educational films,
and then finally came to La But it was Susan
who gave me my start for sure.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
That's right. And then stand what, what fabulous theater productions.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Have you done?
Speaker 4 (27:49):
No, the same thing with me. I started in high
school and then when I came out here, I also started.
But in high school I did Harvey and out here
Death of a Salesman was one of my first down
in Laguna Laguna Molten Playhouse, I did about six productions
down there. That's a wonderful theater if anybody ever gets
(28:10):
a chance. Then Pallas Verdi's I did Champions Season and
a bunch of stuff. So I did a lot of
theater here locally in California before before Little House came along.
Little House was my first first TV job as well,
outside of commercials.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Yeah wow, So I mean the idea that you're both
having your first really major TV job boom with Little House,
that that was the launch of the TV career for
both of you.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
At the same time.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
I was here that look at Alison, that I was
able to go to a lot of theater and see
a lot of people who don't have a lot of film,
and I've been able to hire people because I worked
for Michael. He was very big obviously with NBC, and
(29:02):
NBC said whatever Mike wants, he is fine. And Mike said,
whatever Susan wants is fine. And I was very fortunate
in that way. And I used to cast sometimes when
we used to drive Michael to work in the morning.
We used we both lived in Malibu, so we would
(29:26):
pick each other up and drive to work, and I
would show him pictures of actors in the car because
he was always on the set, never available to cast with.
So Mike would look at pictures and say, do you
like this one? I said yes. He said okay, and
he was very pleasantly surprised, very that is I love it, Like,
(29:51):
here's these people I saw last night to play in
the car.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
In the car.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
I did not get to do my first legitimate theater
till I was on the show because I was so young.
But by thirteen, I was doing the Garden Theater Festival
doing Cry of Players being I got to be Shakespeare's daughter.
I was adorable, but it was so cool. I my
only school play. Oh my god, it was a sixth
grade before a Little House. Except do you remember that
episode A Little House where we did little Women and
(30:18):
Nellie and her mom just ran took over the whole
thing and nobody got to do I remember Nelly. Nelly
had to be the star and her mother had to direct. Yeah,
we had one of those at my school, because everything
is real from a Little House. Yes, there was. There
was completely an Nelly at my school. The Nelly and
her missus Olsen mom. Yeah, they decided to totally.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Do the show.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
And they knew that I had been in a movie
and I had had some commercial tea and I was
given two lines.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
I'm just saying, I'm just saying. Yes, was it the
school Nelly? Yes?
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Was it totally exactly like that episode? Yes, it was
so Yeah that happened. Report allowed to do all kinds
of theater since, and it's so different.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
I love it. I love it so much because it's
so different. I mean, you do TV and you have the.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Opportunity, like a Little House to have a character where
you like there for a really long time and you
can explore all the different things that character does. But
then when you get to do a play and you
have the responses right there. The audience is right there,
right there, and you have the response imlately, and you're
doing it live, so the character is even more weirdly
real for those two hours.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
It's just getting a reaction.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
It's very important. I mean, being in a play and
having an audience react to dialogue that you've given is
really an amazing feeling for an actor.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
I'm sure you know, and.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
I sense it when people used to come in and
read for me in the office and I used to react,
or Michael used to react, and it would make a
whole different way of them delivering those lines because they
got a reaction. And that's that's a big difference between
films and live theater.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
And that was one of the wonderful things about your
cast and the way Michael worked, the way you work
was reaction. Every actor can tell the story of going
to the audition and completely just pouring your heart out
and they're like still on the phone, they're ordering pizza
in the room, They're going, well, oh, are you done now.
It's just like a horrible nightmare comedy, sketchy, but it's real.
I mean, it's just awful. Sometimes you go to auditions.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
And now sit on the floor, you know, give you
to the floor.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
You my guess, because he didn't want to intimidate anybody,
so he would sit on the floor. And I used
to have to tell actors when they'd come in, Mike's
going to be sitting on the floor. Don't feel badly.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Freak out on the floor.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
He was sitting on the floor and I told him,
I said, you know, I just told the actors that
you're sitting on the floor. And he said, why did
you do that? And I said, because you intimidate people.
I mean, you know how handsome he was in person.
I mean, he was just very handsome in itself, was
(33:12):
very intimidating people.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
You know, he was on a couch when I met him.
He's on the couch with Kent and the other guys.
But they were on a couch and I was in
a chair facing them all of eleven twelve and so
that was but again, the reaction, Yeah, as soon as
started when it got funny, they started laughing. So it's
like and in doing stand up and doing theater, the
audience is kind of your scene partner. The audience is
(33:37):
part of the process and the whole react the show.
So at auditions, where we've all been tortured at auditions
as actors where they did absolutely nothing and or the
reader would read in a monotone and the cast doesn't
look at you, just like are you.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Trying to make it hard? What are you doing? And
to be in an audition.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Where they're like, yes, yes, give us what can we
give us what you got, let's go and actually participate
in the audition and react to it was a whole
other world. And that may be why we had such
amazing people on the show.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
I think so. And you know, they're an awful lot
of people in our business that love to intimidate, and
there's nothing more. I mean, let's face it, the most
dramatic thing for anybody to come in for an interview.
I mean, you know that you've got the butterflies, and
(34:32):
you're really nervous, and you're going in to meet somebody
you've never met before, and you got the audition and
all this, that in itself is a nerve wrecking experience.
But to be intimidated by someone who thinks they're the
most important person and they're putting you on the spot
as an emotional person, you'll never get the best reading
(34:59):
or acting out of anybody by giving that kind of feeling.
And I grew up that way. I grew up. My
father had a show in New York and I saw
the actors and what they would go through, and I
thought to myself, I never want to do that to anybody.
I could never do that.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Ever, I got it from somewhere.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
That makes so much sense, because yeah, obviously all the
shows that your dad is to stages, you would have
seen that. You met all these famous people as a child,
you saw so you saw the worst case scenario a lot.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
I A did. I saw them come back and cry.
I saw that come back, and I mean it was
very hard, very hard for most of them, you know, Susan.
Speaker 6 (35:50):
It's interesting because you collected a cast of people who
had done their stage work, their home work there they
I mean Dabs, Catherine Richard, I mean, yes, all of
those people.
Speaker 5 (36:10):
Were from the stage right, and they had all gotten there.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Richard was from the Goodman School, Kathin McGregor had studied
with Sanford Meisner.
Speaker 7 (36:19):
It was like, yes, the collected ever, yeah, terrific, and
then collected all these adorable children who were just raw
talent and nobody had messed them up.
Speaker 6 (36:35):
Yet and and they You know, like Alison, when you
think of what you did, what you created. By the
time Stan and I got there, you and everybody else
had created something that was so solid and so honest
and true. And we just kind of walked in and
took our places. Whether or not people wanted us there
(36:58):
in that little house, placing Monpa or not, you made
it easy for us to walk.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
In to the space.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
I tried to be the welcome wagon, but I was
just gonna ask. I talked to you before. But Pambla
about this, that Stan, the pressure of coming in. I've
talked to Dean about this. Here's this show, it's already happening,
it's already hit. These people all know each other like glue.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
They're all stuck together, and you're like, Hi, how you
don't know me?
Speaker 3 (37:23):
And now on your show that whole feeling and then
you guys had the weird additional pressure of your stepping
into the Ingles house or kind of taking over the
Ingles thing.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Is that? Okay, Stan, did you feel weird? Were you?
Did you feel pressured by this?
Speaker 4 (37:38):
No? Not at all? What are you kidding me? I
tell the story at times about the first day when
we worked together, and the first scene we did up
there in See Me Valley in front of the little house,
and we were standing in a light, tight little circle.
It was Michael on my right, on my right, half
(38:00):
Pint on my left, and across from me was Pam
and we were doing this scene and I just my
lines weren't coming out the way they should, and Michael
was directing and he said cut, cut, and he said,
stand come here. And when he said, we went out
behind the little house and he said, what's wrong. I said,
(38:21):
I'm just nervous. I said, I'm just nervous with the
whole thing. And you know, it's just I said, I'll
be fine, you know, And all of that. He said,
I'll make you promise. He said, I'll never let you
look bad, so don't worry. Take the pressure off yourself.
And he took it off as for an actor, he
(38:42):
just took all that away. And I said, well, he'll
tell me now now whenever, if he doesn't like something,
he'll tell me. And that was the one thing I
never forgot that because he just made work a lot
easier at that moment, and he knew what was going on,
and he'd being an actor himself and all of that.
And he didn't yell, he didn't this, he didn't that.
(39:05):
He just said what's wrong? And when I told him,
he came out with the solution and it was great. Yeah,
great guy, Really a great day to work with.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
It's what made it so cool to be on Little
House because you could trust. You could just kind of.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Go, okay, I have this, I think I'm going to
go with this. But you went.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
It was like you weren't working without a net. You
knew that Michael and everyone involved with the show would go, yes,
that works, No, that doesn't work, so it would somehow
be okay.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
They would get just yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
I mean even even Claxton said to me, oh, I know,
I tell Catherine to just to bring it down a
little no, no, no, not a problem. Tell you what,
you go as far as you think you can go
in this, and I'll let you know if you need
to bring it down.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Just just do whatever the heck you want, okay, And
so people get no, it's okay, just go for it.
Just do it.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
And you could do that on Little House and they'd
let you know if you were coloring out of the
lines or something.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Even the camera operator I remember one of the the
first scenes I had where I had to sit down.
It was in Doc Baker's office and I sat down
and not thinking, and I sat down, and then it
was in between takes and the camera operator came over
to me and he said, look, he said, I'm getting
the top of your head a little bit. You got
to keep straight when you're sitting down. And I said,
(40:19):
and he whispered it to me, so no one else
heard it or anything. I mean, it was just great,
the whole crew. And you know, on a show, especially
on a show, it all starts from the director on down,
from the pro director and producer on down and the
casting director all the way down. It starts from the
top always.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
Right, it always, And TV is such a technical medium.
If you don't have someone there to say, okay, yes, great,
but it's all about the shot and you have to
sit up straighter, that's what you need.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
We had a very supportive crew. We had a crew
that had been with us that Kent brought along with
us for years.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
So they were Bonanza. They knew Michael when he was
a teenagers.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Right, and they cared about each other and wanted the
best for Mike. They wanted the best for Kent. They
wanted to make sure that they wanted to be proud.
And I think Kemp couldn't have been more proud of
(41:32):
his crew.
Speaker 8 (41:34):
They were his family, and I mean he spent most
of his life with the crew, and he knew that
they would never ever let him down. And they never
let any of the actors down any anytime, anytime.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
And we had a lot of fun and a lot
of laughs. And I mean, you know, Mike would start
a story and Kent would finish it. It just was
that way, and it was a special time, very special time.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
I'm sure there was that trust level.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
I should tell the audience a little bit about Kent
and Susan. Susan doesn't drive. She drives, but she doesn't
like to drive. But she never flies. You know that,
we all know that she refuses to fly. Well, Kent
and Susan the Kent was a regent and then Susan
also became one at a university back in Connecticut anyway,
(42:37):
called me one time and said, look, we're going to
be driving cross country and Susan's not going to be driving,
it's just me Kent, would you like to come with us?
And then you could drive Kenton, you know Kent, and
I would be driving. And I said sure, and I
thought about it. I said wow, after you know, when
(42:58):
I hung up there, I said, well, you know, if
he knows you think you know some people and you
work with them, and now you're going to be in
a car twelve hours a day, wrapped in a car
with them, going cross country, going there and coming back.
Oh my god, I said, I maybe just shooting myself
in the foot, or I'm going to have a great time.
(43:18):
And you know what, we did it about what five
or six times, Susan and we had We had a ball.
We had a ball.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
What does this?
Speaker 3 (43:27):
Who from what television show years later does this?
Speaker 1 (43:30):
That's not a thing.
Speaker 4 (43:32):
We had more laughs and everything all the way and
really and that's when we really got to know each other,
or I got to know both of them. Uh you know,
so yeah, that's a Those were special special drives.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
I defy any actors from any series from a few
years ago and the casting director of the producer, any
of the crew to lock themselves in a car together
and drive across the country and live to tell the
time Tower with Alice.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
And it was a big challenge you can do that.
Speaker 6 (44:02):
You you and I did, okay, Susan when we went
to Tucson.
Speaker 5 (44:06):
Yeah, yeah, we did have a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Yeah, I remember it with boring there.
Speaker 6 (44:16):
Oh yeah we hit some bad rain, that's true.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
Very brave.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
Yeah, and people can't do that. Nobody from shows have
that kind of relationship. They could possibly do such a thing.
But yeah, this is the kind of crazy bond that
people from our show have together.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
And that's why this show is really going to work.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
Now we have I have I have a promo, Tony,
do we have the fabulous video, beautiful promo commercial for
the show?
Speaker 5 (44:42):
We do.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
We'll let's have a peek at that because you also
you can see what looks like.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Here we go.
Speaker 9 (44:54):
Hi everyone, I'm Susan McCrae. Starting August twenty first, at
the White Fire the and Sherman Oaks love Letters starring Pamela,
Roy Lentz and Stan Ivar on stage together for the
first time since Little House on the Prairie. So join
(45:15):
us for a lovely time love Letters at the White
Fire Theater.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Aure is that fabulous? That is that? Okay? Where is
the music from set?
Speaker 3 (45:33):
Your dad's music, Dad's music Harry Harry, Harry Sigmund. Yeah, yep,
cho choo choo. Huge composer, that was Gordea. Yeah, this
is going to be fabulous. So I'm coming opening night.
I think most of the people I know from the
show are coming opening night. It's going to be so
August twenty first people for in La, it's going to
be a veritable prairie fest at the White Fire Theater
(45:56):
on Ventura Boulevard. It's a great neighborhood if you haven't
been that air venturable ar a lot of really great restaurants.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
After so through the thirty first, it's gonna go a month.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Oh you don't have to come just the opening. You
could come back a couple of times.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
I could come back several times.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
But yeah, it's great because there you go, here's a
show where you not only see them, the likely to
see one of us in the audience is also.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Really really high. Throughout the Rotten Cut, people are coming
into death because that's what we fought.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
But it's also if you haven't been the White White
Fire is great. I've done so many shows there and
that neighborhood if you haven't been to that part of town.
For watching this and coming in town. Some of the
best restaurants are all up and down that street and
stay open, so you can, Yes, you can make a
whole evening of at dinner and a show. I just
I can't wait for this. I've been looking forward to this,
(46:45):
and just the more I hear about this, the more
exciting it is.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
So where can people get tickets?
Speaker 2 (46:52):
They go to the Whitefiretheater dot com.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
M hm.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
When you go on there, you look at the shows
that they're presenting, and there you will see love letters
and you click on it and it goes right to
where you can buy the tickets.
Speaker 3 (47:10):
And they mail them to you too, as opposed to
the usual like thing on the phone. Because I mine
got mailed to me.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
Oh did it? Oh that's wonderful. I haven't stopped any
so I don't know.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
Well, you didn't have to buy them, can get in?
I think you get in. I think them getting it.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
But yeah, I I bought them and they mailed them,
which is great because you know, half sometime it's the
thing in the phone and the scanning and the whatnot.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
So this one you actually get like real tickets. Sentence
that's nice to push up.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
Who who was coming? And I see that there are
some that they're on hold as a matter of fact
for something, so they it's a good company.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
So yeah, it's a great place. They very well run.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
So yeah, absolutely go to the White Fire at their
website and you can get tickets to this and it
starts on August twenty first, and it was the month.
And this is gonna be wild because you guys. I
mean now, now, Pam, you're you're not a big social
media person, so we can't like hit you up on
the Facebook or the Twitter or the Instagram.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
Yet yet, I say I could.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
I'm going to drag your kicking and screaming into twenty
twenty five one.
Speaker 5 (48:13):
You've been trying for years.
Speaker 6 (48:15):
I remember twenty twenty twenty one, twenty two dragging me.
Speaker 5 (48:20):
I didn't get very far.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
Well, Suan's all over the place, Susan, You're only you
got a website, You got everywhere, and you have you
also have the perfume because because in your spare.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
Time, I've heard it you.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
You know, if you can knit a piano and write
an opera, I swear.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Everything I must say. If you go to there's one
Facebook page, warmheart cooolhands dot com, which is the name
of a CD I produced. If you go to that,
you'll see all the things that you can buy that
I that I've created, my perfume, my children's books, and
(49:01):
I have a beautiful new poetry book that uh that
really is a gorgeous book that I'm very proud of.
So I'm there all over the place.
Speaker 4 (49:13):
And Susan and I even collaborated on a children's book together. Yes, right,
Jammy and Delda, The Story of Sammy, The Story of
Sammy and.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Zelda, Sammy and Zelda. Yes, no, Stan, are you anywhere
we can find you?
Speaker 4 (49:33):
Uh No?
Speaker 1 (49:36):
And he says and dying like it. Yes, So stand's like,
you want to come see me, Come, come to the show.
Come to the show.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
You'll get to see the very handsome Stan Ivar yests
we loved him, that we love him now and and
you'll get handsome Stan and you will get to see
him and the beautiful Panela. And I'm just so looking
forward to, like I said, a kind of relations to
have the actors doing love letters be people who've actually
own each other for decades and who actually are friends
(50:03):
that actually care about it should have a history. It's
just yeah, that's going to come flying off the stage.
I am very excited about this. Thank you for coming on,
thank you for coming on my show.
Speaker 4 (50:13):
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
All right, and indeed this is the Alison Argram Show
and I'm Alison Argram.
Love from the.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Groom.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I'm the Alice and Aringraham Show.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
I am Alison Aringham, although some of you may know
me as Evil and Ellielsen. I am, thankfully tonight Alison Aringraham.
And this is the Alice at Aringham Show. And here
in the Alice at Ingham Show, we talk about things
that make us feel good, the movies and the television
shows that made us feel good, and the people who
made them, and people who are doing things now to
make the world a better and more interesting place. And
(00:43):
I got I got three of them. I got three
of them tonight to qualify in all of those categories.
And you know I always get hysterical and excited when
I have friends on. And I have three of them,
I'm like, you know, Okay.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Where do I even begin?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Okay, So you watch the show, so you remember at
the end, you know, the lovely Tarters came.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
In and took over the Ingles House.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
The beautiful Pamela roy Lance and stan Ivar came in
the Carters there they are, aren't they cute? And they
took over. And you know, if you're really up on
things in the show, you know that our show was
cast by the brilliant Susan McCrae. Yes, that's the right
way they kid McGray, producer, you're figuring.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
It out right. Okay, the show love Letters?
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Right?
Speaker 3 (01:22):
You love to show love Letters that everybody does love it.
Brace yourselves Okay, Pam roy Lance and Stan Ivar are.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Doing Love Letters. Yes at the White Fire Theater in
Sherman Oaks. This is actually happening. I'm like, I gues,
I have my tickets through open eck. This is going
to be epic and I have both of them. And
Susan McCrae here, dive dive, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Hi, Allison Loh.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
The goodness you now, Susan, You're you're direct this and
you're the one you're to get what this is the thing?
You started this idea? What possessed you to say, I
know what I want to do. I want to do
love Letters and directed I'm gonna get stand and Pam
to do love Letters?
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Why? How what happened?
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Well? They were so great on Little House. I figure
if I can cast them from Little House, they could
cast them on Love Letters. What else is there? Right?
Speaker 3 (02:24):
You know what you're doing now? Is this the first
theatrical thing you've directed. I mean, you've ben to cas.
I'm going to read the list of stuff you've cast
because somebody's gonna believe me if I was this the
first thing you've directed.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
No. I actually directed another play called The Runner Stumbles, Oh,
which was quite dramatic, and they made a big movie
out of it, but it didn't do very well. It
was with Dick Van Dyke, believe it or not. Yes, yeah,
and so that was the first. But this is really
(02:58):
going to be special for me because I'm working with
two terrific people who are very dear friends of mine,
and I'm having a great time.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
This is going to be absolutely for these You yet.
Love Letters a show written by A. J. Gurney and
it's been going on forever since like eighty nine. Literally
the entire world has, apparently other than me, has done
Love Letters. You guys are in great company. Let's see
Richard Thomas with Swoosey Kurtz. We had Elaine Stretch, we
did it. William Hurt Treat, WILLIAMS Marshall, Mason, Christopher Reef
(03:31):
sid for me, Christopher Beef did Love Letters.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Everyone has done it. Joan van Ark, Elizabeth Montgomery, Diana Ring.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Okay, all of these people. You are absolutely in good
company here. How excited are you, Pam and Stan? Because
I just want to.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Like, it's Pam and stand. How excited are you to
be doing this?
Speaker 4 (03:50):
I am ladies first, ma'am.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
Thank you Stan, because I went ahead and went first because.
Speaker 6 (03:57):
I know what a gentleman you are. I love rehearsals.
It's wonderful being with Stan again, having Susan direct us.
The play is beautiful, So just that alone is very
much fun to do. But yeah, to be working, to
be kind of back in this old setting, to know
that so many of our friends are going to support
(04:19):
us and come out and see us, it's just like
old Home Week.
Speaker 5 (04:22):
I'm thrilled, really thrilled. Stan.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
What about you?
Speaker 4 (04:27):
The same thing here. First, I want to apologize to
the audience. My video is not working on my computer,
so I want to apologize for that. But yeah, this
is with Susan and Pam. It's like stepping back into
some great, great pair of old shoes that just fit
so comfortably and all of that. And we're having a
good time enjoying the rehearsals, and the jitters are starting
(04:50):
to come here since we're going to be opening in
about a month.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Wow, it's you guys who've done I mean, I love
actually using the photos. So if you really want to
see Stan what he really looks like live, you're going
to have to buy a ticket to the show.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
That's clearly.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
But you guys have done a ton of stuff, you know,
since Little House what cracks me up? As you guys
both became soap opera soap opera divas as it were,
you were king and Queen of the soaps. Pam, which
soap were you on? You were a nice girl, and
you were a nice girl.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
You were a mean person.
Speaker 6 (05:23):
Yes, I was a very nice girl. I think that
was a little too nice to survive it. I played
Sandy Horton, and so I was one of the Hortons,
and that was the nucleus family of the show, and
you could not fire them. So they sent me off
to Africa to do some doctoring over there, and they
never brought me back.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
But oh dear, she was lost.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
She got lost in the jungle saving people.
Speaker 6 (05:51):
I think I was a little more suited to the
prairie life than I was to the very steamy, sexy,
hot soap opera life.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
You know.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
I just think I didn't fit. I wasn't a fit.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Now since your first time, you and Stan working together
since the show.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Hey, I'm be careful what you say.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
Don't tell a lot of secrets. Yes it is, I
really haven't. We haven't worked together all these years.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah. Do what I've done, Yes, do what I've done.
I've brought them together.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Again, Yes you have. I'm so glad this is good,
you and the whole prairie. I mean, we're all, we're
all coming. Everyone is coming to see this for people
who don't realize.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Susan, So who is this McCray? Oh yeah, Okase, she's
married Tom MCCRAYE. Okay, cast cast me cast.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Let's let's go down mist just it.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Susans McCray has been the casting person before besides the
Happy Days, Yeah, Hello, Happy Days, la Vernon, Shirley.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
High, Chaparral, the Odd Couple of course, Father Murphy and
Hi would have the Hawaii five. Oh what the she
cas just everything. There's just a chunk of time in
Hollywood where it's like.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
With you because he says it great, there's all for
God's sake, I.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Gotta I'm terrible on that.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
And when she can't the first movie starring Ow was Yes,
you can, but you you cast everything I did.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I've been very, very fortunate. I have cast some wonderful shows,
but the most wonderful ones are with Michael and I
got to say that we did some beautiful movies of
the Week, and we did some beautiful series episodes, and
I'm very proud of it. I really am.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
It was fantastic. Now. I noticed in an interview you
talked about working.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
With the kids in Christ with Little House, too many
children and you finding that they were all perfectly cast.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
It's like, okay, perfect Laura bry You said.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
The one thing she talked about, because you don't act,
just be yourself, which was a running theme on Little House,
don't bring in a bunch of stuff, just but be yourself. Now,
in my case with my characters, should I really have
been be myself?
Speaker 2 (08:03):
I hope?
Speaker 1 (08:03):
How should I take that?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
I don't want you to be yourself? No? No, no,
that would have been really disaster. I think. No. Alison,
you were fabulous in that part. You really were. You
were just terrific and everybody adored you. I mean, thank you.
How can you not?
Speaker 4 (08:25):
You were natural?
Speaker 1 (08:27):
It was just kind of letting it out.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
You know, you had a bad day and you just
kind of let it up.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
This Millie Olsen came from there.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Stan, you were on a soap opera two for a
long time. Which shape were you on?
Speaker 4 (08:39):
I was on Days? Days of our lives?
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Life?
Speaker 4 (08:42):
But I was heavy?
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Were you bad?
Speaker 4 (08:45):
I was bad? I was bad. I was murdered, I
was buried. I did the first interracial bed scene on Days.
I was a bad boy.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Nice nice, So you don't get on Get this now now?
With love Letters Office is much nicer, but it's kind
of heavy.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
I mean, it's a romantic couple, but it's very much
the long years and the separations and the things that
really go on between people over their course their entire lives.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
It's true, it's a very It has some very sentimental
feelings to it. It has things that people usually will
say in their private lives or how they feel, but
they don't express them as well as some of the
dialogue in this. The writer is just so sensational. He
(09:36):
writes what people think and how they feel about others.
And I think that's what really grabbed me more than
anything is. I said to myself as I read it,
I said, you know, I felt that way or I
said that a long time ago, and it's true. That's
(09:58):
why it's so relatable to a lot an audience.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
It's very realistic. There isn't anyone in the audience that's
not going to feel something in that play that's going
to relate to their life. And then yeah, it's something.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
We identify with. I mean, of course, you know, throwing
it back again the Prairie. Why everybody loves us and
the Prairie is people that they can identify with. All
of our characters were very realistic people, and I think
it's certainly Pam and stand It really kind of put
it out there as being very real, so it wasn't actory,
(10:33):
and I think that resonated with people.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Is why we're all. People are still watching our show
fifty fifty one years later, twenty four hours a day.
It's seventy week.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
From what I understand, more people are watching it now
because of Gable and all than they were originally when
it was first airing.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Yeah, they came up with something. It was like so
many million man hours of viewing.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Time just it's just because it's on.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
There's a channel called Roku that literally runs Little House
in the Prairie twenty four hours a day, seven days
a week.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Right, that's right. Wow, every generation knows Little House on
the Prairie.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Now, Pam, you were actually a fan of the show
before you got on it.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
That was the craziest thing.
Speaker 5 (11:16):
I was.
Speaker 6 (11:17):
I was teaching high school and I'd go home and
watch the reruns at three o'clock, and it was a
big deal. I wanted to be on this show, or
the Waltons or anything Walt Disney or Eight is Enough,
which was popular at the time.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
And so to have a dream come true that was
a really big deal.
Speaker 6 (11:36):
And to have such a lovely part, you know, and
then all these years later, to have it become what
it is now with the relationships between those of us
in the cast who do go meet fans and the
way fans treat us, the cast relationship that we have now,
it's just amazing. And to still have a relationship with Susan,
(12:00):
because I don't think I really have that opportunity Susan
when we were busy working the show, partly because we've stayed.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
In our lane, right, we just we were the actor.
We showed up, prepared it our thing.
Speaker 6 (12:14):
But now to know you as a friend and to
be able to see another side of you.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
It's just been lovely. You know, we're really and you
know miss Allison and Stan and Pam. There are a
lot of shows that say, oh, we're family, We're really
like family, But honestly, we really were like family. There's
no truer thing to say. We cared about each other.
(12:44):
When one of us was not feeling well, we'd call
our doctor and ask him, then, what can we do
to help so and so, or how can we get
I mean, Michael used to get on the phone and
call his doctor for a couple of the crew members
who weren't feeling well. It just was that kind of feeling,
and we cared. We cared about each other. And I
(13:05):
think it continued on when people get together for these
gatherings and the fans can see how we uh talk
with each other and get together and we laugh at
all the old stories and and all of the things.
(13:25):
And when one can't remember one thing, the other one
remember it, and it just goes on and.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
On, and there's more and more of us.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
You can't remember, right, well, what did I do yesterday?
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Either that or you make it up right.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
We're about to do that.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
This is true.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
I mean a lot of shows, say a lot of shows. Frankly,
the norm is people stop filming and never speak to
each other again.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
That's, sadly is the norm of Hollywood. I mean, oh
is it? The even the friends the reunion, they're having
the reunion and.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Everything, and every now and then they're like, Okay, when
did you less you get Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
And they're like oh talking, like coming that and talking years.
These people never see each other and this happens so much.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
So we're really unusual that we have this bond.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Or an unusual that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
And so we're just quite the bunch. We are quite
the bunch. Very new to see.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
Yeah, I was going to see.
Speaker 6 (14:27):
I think that's what's so beautiful about love Letters is
because Stan and I had a really great relationship on
the set, and it's carried over all these years, as
it has with many of the rest of us. So
to be put sitting side by side reading these old
love letters to each other, it just is a natural fit.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
It's it's comfortable.
Speaker 6 (14:48):
We are like a pair of old slippers just getting
back together.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
You know.
Speaker 6 (14:52):
It's just it's I couldn't I couldn't be happier and
and I think it really serves the play because we
have this incredible charismatic relationship with each other, and I
think the audience will feel that.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Well.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Many of the couples that they've gotten, even they got
huge stars, either barely knew each other, hadn't worked together
and certainly had not known each other for nearly fifty years,
had not spent years together as husband and wife in
the bed in the house with the children as husband
and wife from TV and then remain friends. They didn't
nobody's had this kind of relationship. They have not had
(15:29):
two actors together who actually were like this.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
I think this is going to be a whole other thing.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
You think so too.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
Oh No, it's great. Even during rehearsals. I mean, we're
loving it because it's bringing back old memories and old
just like I said, you feel like you're I'm in
there with friends, and I know that sounds funny, but
it's not. And it's a trust factor. I mean Susan
and obviously with Little House, Susan was the first person
(15:59):
we all met when we auditioned for a Little House,
So uh yeah, no, it's uh. When Susan called and said,
what do you think about love letters that I said,
I haven't heard about it. I'd never heard about never looked,
you know, at it. And she got a copy to
me and I said, wow, this would be fun to do,
really fun to do and h and all of that.
(16:22):
So yeah, no, we're enjoying it. Definitely enjoying it.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
I'm adding a few things too, Alison. Are you a
couple of unusual things with this? Uh? I'm actually adding
some beautiful music written by my father to certain parts
of this that really bring out the emotion. It's a
(16:47):
typical Michael Landon move.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
I was gonna say, that's Harry Michael. Well, this is
a great thing. Let me see what I could do
with this. Let me think her without aiment.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
The sentimentality comes out with a beautiful theme and and
that's what makes it lovely. And my mother is also
a part of this because she was an artist trait
and the character in the play is an artist.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Oh that's right, we see her painting.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
You're choosing her paint This is well, your dad was
a composer. And not everyone knows this. I mean the
singing Nune, I mean it's there's again like you had
this whole check of Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Where who's casting susanmc kray, Oh, who's doing the music?
Your dad?
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Well, my dad won an Oscar and was nominated four
different times for one and I'm very proud of them.
And to have his music with me means a lot
to me. It gives me that extra emotion that I
needed for this.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
So again it's these family tie ins.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
It's like what can we throw and so you have
this actual relationship ship between the actors and then you've
thrown in like, oh wait, I cond my mother's painting
in my father's music.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Who also were like known?
Speaker 3 (18:07):
I mean that's the thing. His father was famous as well.
And what was the other one who was singing?
Speaker 1 (18:12):
None?
Speaker 3 (18:12):
And there was like three other huge movies. And then
he did all the TV shows too.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Oh he did a lot intelligence But he did a
show called Fanny which was originally Broadway and then with
a beautiful film with Charles Boy and Maury Chavaie and
Leslie Kron and he one of my favorites for the
Fronds List story which was called Song Without End, So
(18:40):
I could go his career.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
But it's amazing, it's literally the composer of song with
that and so you managed to sneak in his music
and so yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
So it's like this dispatchwork of stuff. It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Now.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
One of the things people do now.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
With shows, fans will do when they love a couple
on a show is what they call spping, short for relationship,
where the fans will sometimes as a joke. It starts
out innocily, but sometimes it gets crazy. Star rooms go oh, well,
there's such a cute couple in the ship. They're totally dating,
and they will start this thing called shipping where they
(19:15):
will insist that these two actors, because the characters are
so good together, are having this huge relationship and are
secretly married, et cetera, et cetera. So is doing this
show going to start a whole shipping rumor with you too?
Speaker 5 (19:28):
I might start at myself.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
I thought we were already there.
Speaker 5 (19:37):
That's funny, Alison, I've never heard of that.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
That sounds like a lot of fun shipping.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
A couple of shows have had actually had trouble where
the fans were so insistent and that the two people
had to go, we're married.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
We're marry each other people, right.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
But they're so beautiful together, they clearly must be in love,
So yeah, shipping.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
And the funny thing.
Speaker 6 (19:59):
Is is that the two care are so opposite each other.
These people, this is like your This is like the
person you're attracted to, whether it's a best friend or
a sweetheart who's just driving you crazy. Here here, here,
but you just cannot separate. You're just so connected and
you fill in the void of each other's life and
(20:21):
you are there protecting each other.
Speaker 5 (20:24):
But you wonder how in the world how they remained together.
It was in the relationship that they're in for forty something.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Years, and they went they went through adolescents together, all
of that. So I mean it starts in the second
grade and goes all the way up.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Yeah, that's a perfect and it's just nobody has that
kind of bond. So I mean, the chemistry on stage
has just got to be like hilariously perfect, and.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
You guys are different to it.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
It's also funny because the characters, you know, being so
completely opposite into the universe. Yeah, you and Stan are
from totally different planets on paper anyway.
Speaker 5 (21:04):
Yeah. True.
Speaker 6 (21:05):
And in case, because I didn't know the play until
we read it, So in case anyone is watching your
show who's not read it, it is the two of
us reading each other's letters all these years, from second
grade all the way up to fifty five years old
or something like that.
Speaker 5 (21:22):
So it's a different setup.
Speaker 6 (21:25):
It's a it's a reader's theater sort of a thing.
You won't see us up on our feet moving around.
It's just the intimacy of two people reading these letters.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
And there's no there's no actual making out in this.
I'm sorry to disappointment wonders, I'm making it, but it
is this play. That's why they said they've gotten so
many people to do it, because people who are very busy,
if they're making films, they're on a series, they can say, yes,
I can fly in and do love letters because it's
we're basically sitting down and reading the letters and communicating
(21:56):
that way, and so it can be done.
Speaker 6 (22:00):
Yes, And the more you get into it, the richer
it becomes. And I mean, you could just read it,
but I think that that's not what Stan and I
could ever do, just because.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Of the relationship that we have.
Speaker 6 (22:13):
I don't want to start a shipping, but forty will
run with that if they want to.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
But yeah, it's it's very rich, a very rich piece
of language.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
The entire two hours almost two hours.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Yeah, I see that.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
It's very relatable. I mean, I can't express that enough.
It's extremely very relatable too, just about anyone.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Well, there's people are still doing it now, as they
said the starter back in the eighties when you look
at everyone's done it, and this is still an incredibly
popular show to do now in twenty twenty five. So
they've come up with something that clearly is eternal that
everyone can relate to.
Speaker 5 (22:56):
Yes, like what you said earlier with the Little House.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
You know, you know, nice to be able to sit
down and watch something well like television. How many theories
are there now, new theories now that that can be
like Little House where you can sit with your family
and enjoy something, well, you can sit with your family
and enjoy love letters and feel good. I mean there
(23:24):
are some little sad moments, but all in all, it's
something that people can be proud of to go and see.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Well, and it's so it's about love and it's so
Little House. Have you guys to take the deep dives?
Speaker 3 (23:40):
You say, well, yeah, we could just come in and
read this and do the reading thing, but too absolutely
of course, have rehearsals and actually make a whole show
of it and creatal relationship, because that's what little house
people do. We go all out. We don't just say, well,
well we'll just phone that in.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Is any one people of them are show don't phone
things in.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
And that's how we did it all by God. So
you got into how long have you been rehearsing? You've
been added a while now.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
About a month, about a little over a month, a
little over a month.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Yeah, and we'll be rehearsing the next uh, next week,
a few days and then we're going to go in
and uh to the theater and run through it and
see how it is. We've got an incredible production manager
who we all love and who we know and Allison,
(24:36):
you know him, Pod McCraw. He is a terrific man
and a terrific artist and a terrific talent. And I
think because he has become part of the family, it
is really a very nice feeling to know that we
can rely on him too.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
With with our little house gang, I'm never sure if
it's adopting or kidnapping, but we do have these people
get pulled in and yeah, Todd, absolutely, the Sieramondry Playhouse
did a whole thing where I did my show, when
I did Confessions and Seramondery, absolutely he was my guy there.
He has helped us on several of our Little House
events and has just been an incredible addition to our
(25:22):
crew as it were. And so when I heard that
he was also involved in this, Okay, well, the show's
going to go on.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Uh, he's completely gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
He is really a wonderful man and a wonderful friend.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
And we've got a pretty damn good director too. I
have to say, so I've hurt.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
This is.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
I adore doing theater. Now, Pam, have you been a
big theater person prior to this? I know you're like
queen you have a horror film slasher flick under your belt,
so yay, but what have you done?
Speaker 5 (25:58):
Do you know? That's where I started back in Portland, Oregon.
Speaker 6 (26:03):
And I can remember I did the soap opera right
after Little House, and I remember one of the actresses
I was in. Michael had called and he said, don't
sign any new contracts and I said, oh, I've been
on days for a month now, and he said it's okay,
it's NBC.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
We're NBC.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
I'll work it out.
Speaker 6 (26:22):
So I was doing Little House, I was doing Days,
and I was in a play at the Glendale Center Theater.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
So it was like all these things happening at once.
And I remember we.
Speaker 6 (26:31):
Were running late on Days one night and I was
trying to decide if I should call the understudy and
have her take over for me at the theater, and
then all of a sudden, they cut me loose and said.
Speaker 5 (26:42):
You can go.
Speaker 6 (26:43):
And I remember this very popular actress on that show
saying do you think it's important for an actress or
an actor to do theater? And my jaw dropped over
because I thought we all came from theater. Didn't occur
to me that you would ever come to Hollywood and
(27:03):
not know your fundamentals of acting.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
So yes, that's where I cut my teeth.
Speaker 6 (27:10):
My first play, I was in the sixth grade and
our social studies teacher wrote a play called the Sun
God and I played the.
Speaker 5 (27:16):
Lead, which was a boy. I played the part of
a boy.
Speaker 6 (27:20):
Yes, so yeah, so, and then it just went on
and on all through high school, all through college.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
It was my main thing.
Speaker 6 (27:28):
And it really wasn't until just before I moved down
to LA that I started getting on camera up in
Portland in the local commercials, local industrial films, educational films,
and then finally came to La But it was Susan
who gave me my start for sure.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
That's right. And then stand what, what fabulous theater productions.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Have you done?
Speaker 4 (27:49):
No, the same thing with me. I started in high
school and then when I came out here, I also started.
But in high school I did Harvey and out here
Death of a Salesman was one of my first down
in Laguna Laguna Molten Playhouse, I did about six productions
down there. That's a wonderful theater if anybody ever gets
(28:10):
a chance. Then Pallas Verdi's I did Champions Season and
a bunch of stuff. So I did a lot of
theater here locally in California before before Little House came along.
Little House was my first first TV job as well,
outside of commercials.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Yeah wow, So I mean the idea that you're both
having your first really major TV job boom with Little House,
that that was the launch of the TV career for
both of you.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
At the same time.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
I was here that look at Alison, that I was
able to go to a lot of theater and see
a lot of people who don't have a lot of film,
and I've been able to hire people because I worked
for Michael. He was very big obviously with NBC, and
(29:02):
NBC said whatever Mike wants, he is fine. And Mike said,
whatever Susan wants is fine. And I was very fortunate
in that way. And I used to cast sometimes when
we used to drive Michael to work in the morning.
We used we both lived in Malibu, so we would
(29:26):
pick each other up and drive to work, and I
would show him pictures of actors in the car because
he was always on the set, never available to cast with.
So Mike would look at pictures and say, do you
like this one? I said yes. He said okay, and
he was very pleasantly surprised, very that is I love it, Like,
(29:51):
here's these people I saw last night to play in
the car.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
In the car.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
I did not get to do my first legitimate theater
till I was on the show because I was so young.
But by thirteen, I was doing the Garden Theater Festival
doing Cry of Players being I got to be Shakespeare's daughter.
I was adorable, but it was so cool. I my
only school play. Oh my god, it was a sixth
grade before a Little House. Except do you remember that
episode A Little House where we did little Women and
(30:18):
Nellie and her mom just ran took over the whole
thing and nobody got to do I remember Nelly. Nelly
had to be the star and her mother had to direct. Yeah,
we had one of those at my school, because everything
is real from a Little House. Yes, there was. There
was completely an Nelly at my school. The Nelly and
her missus Olsen mom. Yeah, they decided to totally.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Do the show.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
And they knew that I had been in a movie
and I had had some commercial tea and I was
given two lines.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
I'm just saying, I'm just saying. Yes, was it the
school Nelly? Yes?
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Was it totally exactly like that episode? Yes, it was
so Yeah that happened. Report allowed to do all kinds
of theater since, and it's so different.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
I love it. I love it so much because it's
so different. I mean, you do TV and you have the.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Opportunity, like a Little House to have a character where
you like there for a really long time and you
can explore all the different things that character does. But
then when you get to do a play and you
have the responses right there. The audience is right there,
right there, and you have the response imlately, and you're
doing it live, so the character is even more weirdly
real for those two hours.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
It's just getting a reaction.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
It's very important. I mean, being in a play and
having an audience react to dialogue that you've given is
really an amazing feeling for an actor.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
I'm sure you know, and.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
I sense it when people used to come in and
read for me in the office and I used to react,
or Michael used to react, and it would make a
whole different way of them delivering those lines because they
got a reaction. And that's that's a big difference between
films and live theater.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
And that was one of the wonderful things about your
cast and the way Michael worked, the way you work
was reaction. Every actor can tell the story of going
to the audition and completely just pouring your heart out
and they're like still on the phone, they're ordering pizza
in the room, They're going, well, oh, are you done now.
It's just like a horrible nightmare comedy, sketchy, but it's real.
I mean, it's just awful. Sometimes you go to auditions.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
And now sit on the floor, you know, give you
to the floor.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
You my guess, because he didn't want to intimidate anybody,
so he would sit on the floor. And I used
to have to tell actors when they'd come in, Mike's
going to be sitting on the floor. Don't feel badly.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Freak out on the floor.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
He was sitting on the floor and I told him,
I said, you know, I just told the actors that
you're sitting on the floor. And he said, why did
you do that? And I said, because you intimidate people.
I mean, you know how handsome he was in person.
I mean, he was just very handsome in itself, was
(33:12):
very intimidating people.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
You know, he was on a couch when I met him.
He's on the couch with Kent and the other guys.
But they were on a couch and I was in
a chair facing them all of eleven twelve and so
that was but again, the reaction, Yeah, as soon as
started when it got funny, they started laughing. So it's
like and in doing stand up and doing theater, the
audience is kind of your scene partner. The audience is
(33:37):
part of the process and the whole react the show.
So at auditions, where we've all been tortured at auditions
as actors where they did absolutely nothing and or the
reader would read in a monotone and the cast doesn't
look at you, just like are you.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Trying to make it hard? What are you doing? And
to be in an audition.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Where they're like, yes, yes, give us what can we
give us what you got, let's go and actually participate
in the audition and react to it was a whole
other world. And that may be why we had such
amazing people on the show.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
I think so. And you know, they're an awful lot
of people in our business that love to intimidate, and
there's nothing more. I mean, let's face it, the most
dramatic thing for anybody to come in for an interview.
I mean, you know that you've got the butterflies, and
(34:32):
you're really nervous, and you're going in to meet somebody
you've never met before, and you got the audition and
all this, that in itself is a nerve wrecking experience.
But to be intimidated by someone who thinks they're the
most important person and they're putting you on the spot
as an emotional person, you'll never get the best reading
(34:59):
or acting out of anybody by giving that kind of feeling.
And I grew up that way. I grew up. My
father had a show in New York and I saw
the actors and what they would go through, and I
thought to myself, I never want to do that to anybody.
I could never do that.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Ever, I got it from somewhere.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
That makes so much sense, because yeah, obviously all the
shows that your dad is to stages, you would have
seen that. You met all these famous people as a child,
you saw so you saw the worst case scenario a lot.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
I A did. I saw them come back and cry.
I saw that come back, and I mean it was
very hard, very hard for most of them, you know, Susan.
Speaker 6 (35:50):
It's interesting because you collected a cast of people who
had done their stage work, their home work there they
I mean Dabs, Catherine Richard, I mean, yes, all of
those people.
Speaker 5 (36:10):
Were from the stage right, and they had all gotten there.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Richard was from the Goodman School, Kathin McGregor had studied
with Sanford Meisner.
Speaker 7 (36:19):
It was like, yes, the collected ever, yeah, terrific, and
then collected all these adorable children who were just raw
talent and nobody had messed them up.
Speaker 6 (36:35):
Yet and and they You know, like Alison, when you
think of what you did, what you created. By the
time Stan and I got there, you and everybody else
had created something that was so solid and so honest
and true. And we just kind of walked in and
took our places. Whether or not people wanted us there
(36:58):
in that little house, placing Monpa or not, you made
it easy for us to walk.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
In to the space.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
I tried to be the welcome wagon, but I was
just gonna ask. I talked to you before. But Pambla
about this, that Stan, the pressure of coming in. I've
talked to Dean about this. Here's this show, it's already happening,
it's already hit. These people all know each other like glue.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
They're all stuck together, and you're like, Hi, how you
don't know me?
Speaker 3 (37:23):
And now on your show that whole feeling and then
you guys had the weird additional pressure of your stepping
into the Ingles house or kind of taking over the
Ingles thing.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Is that? Okay, Stan, did you feel weird? Were you?
Did you feel pressured by this?
Speaker 4 (37:38):
No? Not at all? What are you kidding me? I
tell the story at times about the first day when
we worked together, and the first scene we did up
there in See Me Valley in front of the little house,
and we were standing in a light, tight little circle.
It was Michael on my right, on my right, half
(38:00):
Pint on my left, and across from me was Pam
and we were doing this scene and I just my
lines weren't coming out the way they should, and Michael
was directing and he said cut, cut, and he said,
stand come here. And when he said, we went out
behind the little house and he said, what's wrong. I said,
(38:21):
I'm just nervous. I said, I'm just nervous with the
whole thing. And you know, it's just I said, I'll
be fine, you know, And all of that. He said,
I'll make you promise. He said, I'll never let you
look bad, so don't worry. Take the pressure off yourself.
And he took it off as for an actor, he
(38:42):
just took all that away. And I said, well, he'll
tell me now now whenever, if he doesn't like something,
he'll tell me. And that was the one thing I
never forgot that because he just made work a lot
easier at that moment, and he knew what was going on,
and he'd being an actor himself and all of that.
And he didn't yell, he didn't this, he didn't that.
(39:05):
He just said what's wrong? And when I told him,
he came out with the solution and it was great. Yeah,
great guy, Really a great day to work with.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
It's what made it so cool to be on Little
House because you could trust. You could just kind of.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Go, okay, I have this, I think I'm going to
go with this. But you went.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
It was like you weren't working without a net. You
knew that Michael and everyone involved with the show would go, yes,
that works, No, that doesn't work, so it would somehow
be okay.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
They would get just yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
I mean even even Claxton said to me, oh, I know,
I tell Catherine to just to bring it down a
little no, no, no, not a problem. Tell you what,
you go as far as you think you can go
in this, and I'll let you know if you need
to bring it down.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Just just do whatever the heck you want, okay, And
so people get no, it's okay, just go for it.
Just do it.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
And you could do that on Little House and they'd
let you know if you were coloring out of the
lines or something.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Even the camera operator I remember one of the the
first scenes I had where I had to sit down.
It was in Doc Baker's office and I sat down
and not thinking, and I sat down, and then it
was in between takes and the camera operator came over
to me and he said, look, he said, I'm getting
the top of your head a little bit. You got
to keep straight when you're sitting down. And I said,
(40:19):
and he whispered it to me, so no one else
heard it or anything. I mean, it was just great,
the whole crew. And you know, on a show, especially
on a show, it all starts from the director on down,
from the pro director and producer on down and the
casting director all the way down. It starts from the
top always.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
Right, it always, And TV is such a technical medium.
If you don't have someone there to say, okay, yes, great,
but it's all about the shot and you have to
sit up straighter, that's what you need.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
We had a very supportive crew. We had a crew
that had been with us that Kent brought along with
us for years.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
So they were Bonanza. They knew Michael when he was
a teenagers.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Right, and they cared about each other and wanted the
best for Mike. They wanted the best for Kent. They
wanted to make sure that they wanted to be proud.
And I think Kemp couldn't have been more proud of
(41:32):
his crew.
Speaker 8 (41:34):
They were his family, and I mean he spent most
of his life with the crew, and he knew that
they would never ever let him down. And they never
let any of the actors down any anytime, anytime.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
And we had a lot of fun and a lot
of laughs. And I mean, you know, Mike would start
a story and Kent would finish it. It just was
that way, and it was a special time, very special time.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
I'm sure there was that trust level.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
I should tell the audience a little bit about Kent
and Susan. Susan doesn't drive. She drives, but she doesn't
like to drive. But she never flies. You know that,
we all know that she refuses to fly. Well, Kent
and Susan the Kent was a regent and then Susan
also became one at a university back in Connecticut anyway,
(42:37):
called me one time and said, look, we're going to
be driving cross country and Susan's not going to be driving,
it's just me Kent, would you like to come with us?
And then you could drive Kenton, you know Kent, and
I would be driving. And I said sure, and I
thought about it. I said wow, after you know, when
(42:58):
I hung up there, I said, well, you know, if
he knows you think you know some people and you
work with them, and now you're going to be in
a car twelve hours a day, wrapped in a car
with them, going cross country, going there and coming back.
Oh my god, I said, I maybe just shooting myself
in the foot, or I'm going to have a great time.
(43:18):
And you know what, we did it about what five
or six times, Susan and we had We had a ball.
We had a ball.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
What does this?
Speaker 3 (43:27):
Who from what television show years later does this?
Speaker 1 (43:30):
That's not a thing.
Speaker 4 (43:32):
We had more laughs and everything all the way and
really and that's when we really got to know each other,
or I got to know both of them. Uh you know,
so yeah, that's a Those were special special drives.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
I defy any actors from any series from a few
years ago and the casting director of the producer, any
of the crew to lock themselves in a car together
and drive across the country and live to tell the
time Tower with Alice.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
And it was a big challenge you can do that.
Speaker 6 (44:02):
You you and I did, okay, Susan when we went
to Tucson.
Speaker 5 (44:06):
Yeah, yeah, we did have a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Yeah, I remember it with boring there.
Speaker 6 (44:16):
Oh yeah we hit some bad rain, that's true.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
Very brave.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
Yeah, and people can't do that. Nobody from shows have
that kind of relationship. They could possibly do such a thing.
But yeah, this is the kind of crazy bond that
people from our show have together.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
And that's why this show is really going to work.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
Now we have I have I have a promo, Tony,
do we have the fabulous video, beautiful promo commercial for
the show?
Speaker 5 (44:42):
We do.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
We'll let's have a peek at that because you also
you can see what looks like.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Here we go.
Speaker 9 (44:54):
Hi everyone, I'm Susan McCrae. Starting August twenty first, at
the White Fire the and Sherman Oaks love Letters starring Pamela,
Roy Lentz and Stan Ivar on stage together for the
first time since Little House on the Prairie. So join
(45:15):
us for a lovely time love Letters at the White
Fire Theater.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Aure is that fabulous? That is that? Okay? Where is
the music from set?
Speaker 3 (45:33):
Your dad's music, Dad's music Harry Harry, Harry Sigmund. Yeah, yep,
cho choo choo. Huge composer, that was Gordea. Yeah, this
is going to be fabulous. So I'm coming opening night.
I think most of the people I know from the
show are coming opening night. It's going to be so
August twenty first people for in La, it's going to
be a veritable prairie fest at the White Fire Theater
(45:56):
on Ventura Boulevard. It's a great neighborhood if you haven't
been that air venturable ar a lot of really great restaurants.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
After so through the thirty first, it's gonna go a month.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Oh you don't have to come just the opening. You
could come back a couple of times.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
I could come back several times.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
But yeah, it's great because there you go, here's a
show where you not only see them, the likely to
see one of us in the audience is also.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Really really high. Throughout the Rotten Cut, people are coming
into death because that's what we fought.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
But it's also if you haven't been the White White
Fire is great. I've done so many shows there and
that neighborhood if you haven't been to that part of town.
For watching this and coming in town. Some of the
best restaurants are all up and down that street and
stay open, so you can, Yes, you can make a
whole evening of at dinner and a show. I just
I can't wait for this. I've been looking forward to this,
(46:45):
and just the more I hear about this, the more
exciting it is.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
So where can people get tickets?
Speaker 2 (46:52):
They go to the Whitefiretheater dot com.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
M hm.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
When you go on there, you look at the shows
that they're presenting, and there you will see love letters
and you click on it and it goes right to
where you can buy the tickets.
Speaker 3 (47:10):
And they mail them to you too, as opposed to
the usual like thing on the phone. Because I mine
got mailed to me.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
Oh did it? Oh that's wonderful. I haven't stopped any
so I don't know.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
Well, you didn't have to buy them, can get in?
I think you get in. I think them getting it.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
But yeah, I I bought them and they mailed them,
which is great because you know, half sometime it's the
thing in the phone and the scanning and the whatnot.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
So this one you actually get like real tickets. Sentence
that's nice to push up.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
Who who was coming? And I see that there are
some that they're on hold as a matter of fact
for something, so they it's a good company.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
So yeah, it's a great place. They very well run.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
So yeah, absolutely go to the White Fire at their
website and you can get tickets to this and it
starts on August twenty first, and it was the month.
And this is gonna be wild because you guys. I
mean now, now, Pam, you're you're not a big social
media person, so we can't like hit you up on
the Facebook or the Twitter or the Instagram.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
Yet yet, I say I could.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
I'm going to drag your kicking and screaming into twenty
twenty five one.
Speaker 5 (48:13):
You've been trying for years.
Speaker 6 (48:15):
I remember twenty twenty twenty one, twenty two dragging me.
Speaker 5 (48:20):
I didn't get very far.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
Well, Suan's all over the place, Susan, You're only you
got a website, You got everywhere, and you have you
also have the perfume because because in your spare.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
Time, I've heard it you.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
You know, if you can knit a piano and write
an opera, I swear.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Everything I must say. If you go to there's one
Facebook page, warmheart cooolhands dot com, which is the name
of a CD I produced. If you go to that,
you'll see all the things that you can buy that
I that I've created, my perfume, my children's books, and
(49:01):
I have a beautiful new poetry book that uh that
really is a gorgeous book that I'm very proud of.
So I'm there all over the place.
Speaker 4 (49:13):
And Susan and I even collaborated on a children's book together. Yes, right,
Jammy and Delda, The Story of Sammy, The Story of
Sammy and.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Zelda, Sammy and Zelda. Yes, no, Stan, are you anywhere
we can find you?
Speaker 4 (49:33):
Uh No?
Speaker 1 (49:36):
And he says and dying like it. Yes, So stand's like,
you want to come see me, Come, come to the show.
Come to the show.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
You'll get to see the very handsome Stan Ivar yests
we loved him, that we love him now and and
you'll get handsome Stan and you will get to see
him and the beautiful Panela. And I'm just so looking
forward to, like I said, a kind of relations to
have the actors doing love letters be people who've actually
own each other for decades and who actually are friends
(50:03):
that actually care about it should have a history. It's
just yeah, that's going to come flying off the stage.
I am very excited about this. Thank you for coming on,
thank you for coming on my show.
Speaker 4 (50:13):
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
All right, and indeed this is the Alison Argram Show
and I'm Alison Argram.
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