Stefanie Powers, Veteran Actress

Today Alison interviews actress Stefanie Powers.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
From Yo and I am Alison Aringram. Okay, a lot
of you probably remember me as Evil Nellie Olsen from

(00:25):
Little House on the Prairie. But tonight, luckily I have
Alison Aringram and this is the Alison Ringham Show. And
here in the Alison Aringham Show, we like to talk
about things make us.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Feel good, the TV shows and the movies 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.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
And oh, do I have someone who is in all
of these categories. I'm so excited. I am so excited. Yes, yes,
you know her from Heart to heart multiply Emmy Award
nominated and I remember which she was the girl from
Under What No, Yes, and of course the founder of

(01:06):
the William Holden Wildlife Foundation. I'd like to introduce fabulous
actress activists and having spoken to her for a few
minutes before the show, possibly the smartest person in the world. Yes,
Stephanie Powers.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
People are you, but that's a very nice introduction. Yes,
but you are also a polyglot, you know your multiple
languages and we were just speaking in French.

Speaker 4 (01:40):
Uh and it was it was lovely.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
But she has me beat by five. I mean, as
I said, I had seen the rumor that you spoke
six languages, and I was like, is this trivia or
is this the thing is true? And you literally do
speak six languages fluently.

Speaker 4 (01:56):
For Polish was my first language.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
I think that one okay.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
And you know a few years ago when we had
a Polish pope, I had the great a set of
circumstances that all fit together. That excuse me, that's my
new dog, A new dog. Well, come here. She was

(02:21):
going to be executed two days after I rescued her.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Just in time, Just in time.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
He's only been here a couple of weeks now, and
she just has taken over.

Speaker 4 (02:33):
She wants to protect everybody.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
If he hears a little voice, or god forbid, some
dog bark somewhere in the neighborhood, she's off. She's going
to protect me. So she's only a year old, so
she has a lot to learn.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
And that's a baby. How many dogs you have now?
I have five here live here. And then you said
four Did you say fourteen horses earlier?

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Yes, the horses that I have around where I used
to play polo a great and so I had quite
a lot of horses in England.

Speaker 4 (03:05):
I'm left with only three horses here, only three horses.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
And then I have I have seven out of the
original twelve that I had in England, and then in
Kenya I have five. So we're we're it's a skeleton crew.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
I will never complain about dealing with two cats as
being hard effort. Right, you were talking about Polish and
speaking Polish and yees.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
So I had this absolutely stunning opportunity to meet the Pope.
I was late because my airplane landed late and I
couldn't get to the public or the the the more
public reception in the summertime that he does so because

(03:56):
of my Polish heritage and my connection with the father
Socle Whisky, who was the head of the Polish House,
the Polish home in Rome at the time, he arranged
that I should go and with a group of Polish
pilgrims to Castello Gundalfo.

Speaker 4 (04:14):
Where can you believe it?

Speaker 3 (04:16):
I had masked from the hand of the Pope and
I was determined to speak to him in Polish afterwards
when there were photographs being taken, and he gave me
a rosary and all of that and I had a
speech all prepared, and I spoke to him in Polish,
and the photographs showed that we were having a conversation.

(04:37):
He spoke to me in English. I don't remember a
thing he said, so it came in handy. And yet
I was so bespotted with the idea of speaking to
our Pope in Polish that I completely lost the plot

(04:58):
and I was.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
I was sure he noticed. I'm sure he went back
and went Stephani Powers was here the movie started. You spoken.
I'm sure he was thrilled, but he.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
Did know he was You know, he had been an
actor in his life, that's right. He was very well
aware of who was in on television or who had
any Polish heritage. So that was a that was a
big treat. What an extraordinary opportunity that was.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
Well. Now, I always amazed to find out which shows
are popular in Europe and who knows what? And Heart
to heart really big in France. You knew that, did
you know that I did?

Speaker 4 (05:39):
Yes? I was married to a Frenchman.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
So I lived in France for about ten years with
him in Burgundy, and everybody in the area felt that
they had known me for the entire lives because, of course,
we came into their home on Sunday nights when the
show was on, after the whole family had been together

(06:02):
and had their Sunday dinner and all of that, and
they would sit in front of the Telly and watch
Heart to Heart.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
Was it a more de risk risk? I had French
friends in town, and I'm a friend who's a tour guide.
And in fact, he and I had been doing a
tour like Hollywood Holmes. And I said, guys, I can
him to a secret tour to get any place you
want to see. So he not knowing anything about the French,
he's rattling off all these celebrity homes, star of this,

(06:30):
star of that, and he keeps mentioning movies and the
two they were fairly young French people too, and they
were saying, no, I don't we don't know that one.
He's like, you don't know that one. It's a celebrity, No,
no idea who that is? You don't know who that is?
TV says, don't know And finally he says the house
from Heart to Heart and they went more to Risk, yes,
of course, and we went to the heart that they
were excited about. And he's like I give up what
the Heart time, and then Alfred Hitchcock's house. These were

(06:51):
like the two things they're most excited about. We were
like geg. But the lat the Prairie of course is
on regularly as well.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
So absolutely never no, no connects with you. For example,
Wicked is one of the biggest hits of the season.
It is directed by a man called John Chu. He
gave an interview to the Hollywood Reporter the other day
and he sat talked about how his family was terribly

(07:21):
concerned about as immigrants coming to the United States and
becoming really American, and so they used to watch certain
shows on television that they thought represented a real American relationship.
And not only did they watch Hard to Heart, but
they called their children Jonathan and Jennifer.

Speaker 4 (07:44):
God so John Chu is.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
Really Jonathan and his sister is Jennifer jot.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
Not many people name their children Nelly. They named them Laura,
they named the Mary. They never named the Nelly. But
I mean that would sort of freak me out a
little bit, very horrible.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
And somebody we a mutual friend, told him that I
had read that and that would I would be very
happy to meet him. And he's Oh, he was very excited.
He was going to call his sister and we were
going to try and find the time to meet.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Oh well, bet we do not know the influence we have.
That's the thing. Is this movies, your movies a but TV.
You're right there, You're in the living room with them,
you're in their home, and it's a completely different relationship.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
Well we you know, today it's all very different, as
you know, with streaming services and all people are not
quite as connected, i think to the things they see
on television as they once were when Little House on
the Praier was showing, when Heart to Heart was showing,
because there was ABCNBC and CBS and I did that

(08:51):
was it, and so you had very little choice and
you became extremely involved in the lives and in the
personal relationships that you had with the shows that the
family watched that you watched through those years when you
could connect to people because they were on and in

(09:13):
your home every week.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
Right right, and it was a sort of a thing.
And we get a lot of people with the snow
little hus they watch shows with their family. So we
get people now say, well, when I was younger, I
watch your show with my mom or with my grandmother,
and this is I remember them by watching the show
again because I have this connection with that person. It's
a really fascinating phenomenon.

Speaker 3 (09:35):
It's very nostalgic for them to recall these shows because
they meant so much to the families they were growing
up in.

Speaker 4 (09:43):
I'm a little bit the victim of that myself, because.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
I watch all the streaming shows, and if just to
find out what's going on and all, if I find
a group of actors that I think are very really
good and they did their roles well, suddenly this sort
of the show goes off the air or doesn't come
back for another year or so or a season, and

(10:08):
you forget all about them, and then you never see
them again because they wouldn't replaced.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
And it drives me crazy because with me, the old
TV shows, they would buy a block of twenty six episodes.
You knew you were getting that much. But now the
streaming shays, well, we're doing eight episodes, are doing nine episodes,
are doing this, and then our second season isn't for
three years, and they drive me nag. Like I was
waiting at the night, I was ready, I was on board.
I was going to do the second season and they
know you have to wait to see the next thing,

(10:36):
and it's very different.

Speaker 3 (10:38):
I mean, that's really part and parcel of how why
it is that I think we still have such a
lovely following that there are great loyal fans that thank
God bless them for them, Because my loyal fans, I
have a great deal to thank them for because they
have been, you know, such great contributors to the work

(10:59):
of the William and Wildlife Foundation, all because of this
wonderful connection with Heart to Heart and other shows, but
also with Heart to Heart.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
Now I do have to tell you that I'm going
to be talking about this, this whole thing, with this
award and this book and the things that are happening
because of your work you've done. But when I was
a tiny little girl, indeed, oh man from Uncle and
then they grew from Uncle and you realize, of course
now looking back to obviously at that time period to
begin to have female superheroes as it were, I watched

(11:32):
Honey West when I was really little. It was just
like thrill the pieces that in the sixties when you
started to have it was all the guys James Bond
of the men from Uncle and Superman and Batman, and
then you started to have the bat Girl and the
Girl from Uncle, and you started to have the women
riding the motorcycle and catching the bad guys. Although I
think you had a guy, you weren't allowed to kill

(11:52):
any bad guys because you were the girl for some
weird but for a young girl to see that, it
was a very big deal at the time.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
Well, very interestingly enough, I didn't realize that I was
under contract to Columbia Pictures.

Speaker 4 (12:09):
I had done motion pictures.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
I wasn't allowed to do television according to the contract.
And then they sold me. They sold me, they sold
my contract to MGM for the Girl from Uncle, specifically
for the Girl from Uncle. In those days, nobody really
you know, people didn't.

Speaker 4 (12:30):
Publicize things in the same way that what they do now.

Speaker 3 (12:33):
And I never realized until a few years ago that
when somebody called me to say, would you be in
this show that PBS is doing, it's about the pioneers
of television, and I said, well, I'm hardly a pioneer,
and they said, oh no.

Speaker 4 (12:50):
The Girl from Uncle was the first.

Speaker 3 (12:53):
Hour long television series starring a woman. Now we never ever,
I wasn't aware of that when we were doing the show.
I was never made aware of that, and it wasn't publicized.

Speaker 4 (13:04):
That's how different the times.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
Were and being sole thing nowadays we actress, we talked
about going, you know, wanting to get apart. But in
the studio system, and you were one of the studio
system people. You started so young. People don't realize you
were told you're doing this picture now, and now you're
you've been sold and you'll be doing this shoot. It
wasn't like, but what if I don't want to.

Speaker 4 (13:29):
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no no. There was
none of that.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
You were owned by the studio, scooned by the studio.
Was the last part of the star system, the Hollywood
Star system for which Hollywood became famous, and there a
great deal of the training.

Speaker 4 (13:48):
That one got under that system was like a.

Speaker 3 (13:51):
Finishing school, but a finishing school as a professional, so
that you would be prepared to speak in public. You
would be prepared there to be a good representation of
the studio or representative of the products that they were making,
a representative of the studio.

Speaker 4 (14:10):
So it was a very.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
Different responsibility and you were expected to rise to the occasion. Today,
none of that exists. It's a kind of free form,
so you get a role. You see people and that
very much display in their personal lives behavior or candor

(14:33):
maybe I should say that's not certainly would never have
been allowed during the studio system.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
And people are should have left to their own device.
I mean, maybe they have a manager helps, but there's
people who say, well, I'd like to say the right
thing in an interview, but that they just kind of
go off, you go and fling you with the mic,
and hopefully maybe they have a manager an agent who
says to want to know what to say. So it's chaos.
I think a lot of the stuff now with like

(15:02):
Nickelodeon and Disney, the young kids, they have a system
was like and now you're putting out an album and
now you're doing this, and here's what we're doing with you.
But yeah, the studio system is incomprehensible to people now.
I mean the advantages were they did give you the
opportunity to get There was acting classes and dance class,
there was there was training, there was free training you
could get and public speaking training as opposed to that.

(15:24):
But you also the thing of like and your.

Speaker 4 (15:27):
Snert I'm sorry, I lost you there sort of kind of.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
A prisoner just a little bit. I mean that's the
other problem. I mean, you got all the training, but
then you couldn't you had no choice in things.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
Well not really no, but at the same time, think
of all of the advantages over being a free.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
Agent, and in your case, you got sold into a
great show. I mean you got I mean talk about
god lucky girlfriend uncle, but it was it was marvelous.
And for a child who was watching all the shows
and the Batman's Men, the shows and the mental Uncle
and enjoying those. I loved David McCallum. But then suddenly

(16:07):
there's a girl. She's doing it. She's doing it, and
then look, I said, honey Westall it was fantastic. I
was enthralled and and I loved that show. And so
that's just with thank you, thank you for that. I
love that show. When I was a kid, I was
totally into it. So there you are.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
Well, I'm actually thrilled because it's wonderful to know that
there was some positive impression. We don't get that kind
of the kind of feedback that you get in the theater,
which I work in quite a lot, where you get
that immediate response that you know whether or not what

(16:44):
you were working for was actually registering with the audience.
But when in later years were the years about the
impressions that were made over the work that you did.
I'm very I'm really thrilled to have had a positive
impact and you know what.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
You truly did. Oh they're the dogs.

Speaker 3 (17:06):
No, there they go to chase some imaginary thing.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
There's so many things you do. Now, the William Holden
Wildlife Foundation, I've known about that, but now there is
a huge thing happening. I'm reading about this that the
Permanent the permanent Mission of Monaco to the United Nations,
which I was just in Monaco in June with the
whole Little House, the televisions that they have a fabulous
television festival in Monte Carlo every year, and I'd gone

(17:37):
a couple times in this time with cast Littlehouse, so
I've been to Monaco. I did not know there was
a permanent mission in Monica the United Nation and they
are honoring you and the whole William Holden Wildlife Foundation
with the twenty twenty four Agents of Change Awards. Plus
there does a book, Visions of the for the Future,
which is capturing inspiring stories from leaders and change, and

(18:00):
you're in that as well.

Speaker 3 (18:03):
Yes, yes, yeah, this is finally the dogs.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yeah, so explained this thing about the mission of Moleco
to the United Nations and the whole this whole honor
from the United Nations in the world. I mean, this
is fantastic.

Speaker 4 (18:18):
Well, it's a it's a wonderful effort.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
Because the the the e book which is available now,
Vision for the Future, it highlights the work of about
twenty five people, and I'm very flattered to be among
that group. We don't our work doesn't cross over, although
some of sometimes in the humanitarian ways it does. But

(18:46):
each one of the of the people that are highlighted
have spent a great deal of time and have been
devoted to the causes that they have, that they have fostered,
and that they have been did through its infancy into
its fruition.

Speaker 4 (19:03):
And that's kind of.

Speaker 3 (19:06):
The reason for this, because the person that organized it
under the auspices of the UN and the mission from Monica,
is devoted to service and devoted to people's histories.

Speaker 4 (19:25):
Of service to the greater cause.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
In our case, it's the preservation of flora and fauna
and the William Holden Wilife Foundation is named as such
to carry on some of the work that William Holden did.
He was my life partner for the last ten years
of his life, and he was a visionary in wildlife
conservation long before the word conservation was even in popular use.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
Oh yeah, this was way before people were talking about
this and now every talk to Oh yes, various wildlife funds.
You were doing this and he was doing this long
before this was a quote popular thing to be doing,
knowing people were.

Speaker 4 (20:09):
Doing this, doing it way before me.

Speaker 3 (20:12):
He created the first game ranch for the preservation of
species in nineteen fifty nine, if you can.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
Fifty nine people were rushing over there to go and
shoot things and hunt them. Who was creating a game
ranch to save in with nineteen fifty nine.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
So what he had always wanted to do and didn't,
unfortunately live to actually bring to Parishian It was his
idea of creating a wildlife conservation education center for local
people so that the local people could understand and learn

(20:47):
what the biodiversity was in their backyard and it's a
value not only to them but now as they're understanding
it to world climate, to all sorts of qualities of
life for the planet. And we have about eleven thousand
students a year coming through our education.

Speaker 4 (21:06):
Center and have done since nineteen eighty two.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
So we received our IRS status as a public charity,
which I've formed after Bill's death specifically to build the
education center he had envisioned that would carry on the
work from a very grassroots level. So can you imagine
all of these people who have passed through the portals

(21:33):
of the Williams.

Speaker 4 (21:34):
And Wildlife's Education Center.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
We have an outreach program that deals with people in
extreme sometimes in extreme poverty, and sometimes in extreme rural.

Speaker 4 (21:46):
Settings who have no way of.

Speaker 3 (21:48):
Actually seeing or understanding the environment that they actually live in.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
Right, that's something people don't think of. I mean, yes,
we Western news go on safaris and safaris to these places,
but the people who actually live there are busy getting
through the day and aren't out going. Oh, look at
the majestic rhinoceros. That's not a thing. So this is
this is a whole new no concept when.

Speaker 3 (22:15):
You can't just say don't cut down that tree when
you need some firewood. So it's a it's an ongoing
battle that mankind against nature has been conducting for millions
of years human beings that from the time human beings

(22:36):
stood up, they have been conquering the natural world and
trying to submit to have the natural world submit to
the human needs. Now to be understand but to bring
it full circle, now we understand that our overexploitation of
the planet is putting a time bomb in our laps,

(23:00):
and it's very much something we should all be concerned
about and participating in. It's not just over there, it's
not just their problem and that somebody else is doing
something about it. We have to express our own, our
own concern by even something as simple as buying clothes

(23:23):
that are biodegradable, because some of the clothes we.

Speaker 4 (23:27):
Buy and throw away are not biodegradable.

Speaker 3 (23:30):
They're made out of patroleum products and they will be
in that landfill forever.

Speaker 1 (23:36):
Forever.

Speaker 4 (23:38):
That is, we're not going to help preserve this planet.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
It's everything we do has an impact of the environment.
I mean literally, Okay, if you're breathing, yes, you are
taking in the oxygen. If you exist, you're going to
need to eat, You're going to consume water, You're going
to consume resources. But to become aware of what resources
you consume of how much of how much you don't
necessarily need to consume, how you can you know, moderate

(24:04):
that and say, well, how much of this do do
I actually need? How as I say a carbon footprint,
how gigantic or small does that need to be? I
was reading that part of this project is also dealing
with the problem of when people are trying to farm
that the ground becomes unfarmable fertilization. It's not the ground
is not fertile. That there's a project about sort of

(24:26):
reclaiming land, sort of making the very earth itself reusable
so that people can farm and raise food in land
they would have had to just walk away from.

Speaker 3 (24:37):
Yet, Yes, and all of that, but let me synopsize
it for you. So over exploitation of land which may
not have been suitable for farming but became productive simply
and utterly by the use of chemicals, gets burns out

(24:59):
very quickly. When that land is burned out and it's
no longer producing, and people then have to go to
another piece of land and exploit that again, you are
losing the environment. We're losing biodiversity, We're over exploiting natural
resources that we depend on to produce that oxygen that

(25:23):
we breathe and to have habitat.

Speaker 4 (25:26):
For living things of all kinds, whether.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
It's bugs or bees or the larger or elephants, they
all serve a purpose and they all deserve to be
able to cohabit with us instead of us taking everything
so they can no longer exist, which ultimately makes it
impossible for us to exist.

Speaker 4 (25:49):
All of that working together is part.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
Of everything we teach at the widimulder Malaye Foundation and
our new adventure, which has to do with the second
part of our mission statement, which our mission statement is
wildlife conservation through education and alternatives to habitat destruction. So
in that light, we are teaching and we have seven

(26:16):
projects where we have soil regeneration as the basis of
regenerative farming. So our soil regenerative techniques are able to
turn over pieces of land very rapidly in some cases
and in most cases within one growing season.

Speaker 4 (26:35):
Oh wow, that's crucial for the people we're dealing with,
because we're dealing with small holding.

Speaker 3 (26:44):
Small landholders who have maybe an acre no more than
ten acres to cultivate in order to either have subsistence
farming or something that they can also sell to support
their families.

Speaker 4 (26:58):
That's part of.

Speaker 3 (26:59):
The whole eCos It must be dealt with holistically. It's
not just having an e car, you know. It's not
just having an electric car that you plug in to
electricity that is produced by an electrical grid which is
powered by.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
What it still has to go from somewhere. Yes, it's
exactly where.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
So we go back to because we're dealing with people
who are very much land based and very much dependent.

Speaker 4 (27:31):
On the land and on the environment for their own survival,
they have to understand that that survival.

Speaker 3 (27:37):
Has to be curated, has to be cultivated, not just
to produce food, but cultivated to be able to continue
to have a planet and to have an environment that.

Speaker 4 (27:49):
Is going to be productive.

Speaker 3 (27:51):
All of that works in harmony with the preservation of
the biosphere and the preservation of the natural species.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
So not only is this obviously is it preventing an
enormous loss of that land, which becomes practically desert if
it's nobody can't grow anything, and it's bad for the
habitat for the animals as well as if they can't
live there, but isn't and also then beneficial to the
people living there because if their previous setup was to

(28:22):
farm the land till it's dead and then move on,
that's I would think would keep one in a cycle
of poverty. You wouldn't really be able to amass anything
because you constantly starting over, and the land's no good.
As you said, to begin with half the time without
the camp that being able then to get this re

(28:43):
energize this land and show them how to do it
within we're growing seasy, you said, Then they can. People
would be able to stay longer in one place. Would
not they're farmed, then increase, would not Then the amount
of food they could sell or feed their family be
enormously increased.

Speaker 3 (29:00):
Yes, of course, yes to all of the above. Let
me just take it piece by peace. Desertification, what you're
talking about, has increased, not expedentially with the population, but
it has increased.

Speaker 4 (29:16):
It is run away all over a planet.

Speaker 3 (29:21):
It's obviously visible in the Amazon, where the level of
top soil is so fragile and so minimal that when
they cut down what looks as if it's this amazingly
productive and amazingly healthy jungle, they don't realize that what

(29:42):
they've done is that they've exposed the earth and the
top soil to light and to heat that it's never
been exposed to, and therefore it dries up very quickly
and it eventually becomes unproductive. That the primary grasslands, et
cetera that they claim that they need to exploit, the

(30:04):
the the rainforest four begins to dry up.

Speaker 4 (30:09):
And turn into dust. That is part and.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
Parcel the reason that we need to preserve and re establish,
sort of recreate what nature gave us. You know, it
takes about one thousand years to produce or naturally produce
one inch of top soil to give you an idea,
So it means it means we need to accelerate that process.

(30:35):
We need to participate in the re establishment of all
of the natural gifts the planet has given us that
we've over exploited, and we need to do it quickly,
We need to do it now, and we need to
be joined together in this effort so that we're not

(30:56):
just exploiting everything in our in our grasp, but the
we are giving back and we are seeing that if
you have to cut that tree down, that you plant
two or three in its place, because if we cannot
recapture or in some ways restore some of that which

(31:18):
we have exploited.

Speaker 4 (31:19):
We are doomed and very quickly.

Speaker 3 (31:22):
And I know that it is a bad news and
not the news for an entertainment show.

Speaker 4 (31:27):
But it is a message that we need not to forget.

Speaker 3 (31:31):
We need to get up off our sofas and off
of our chairs and actually get into the fight. Because
if we don't join in this, why why are you
having children? Why are you looking at a future which
is not going to be there for anybody.

Speaker 4 (31:49):
We're going to look at AI running the whole everything.

Speaker 3 (31:51):
So if AI is going to replace us, AI is
then going to what tackle this problem? Because we human
beings don't seem to be smarter enough to do that.
We're soiling our own nest. We've already done that time
and time again since the industrial revolution. Now we have

(32:12):
to turn it around, and we have to do it
by all of us participating in one way or another.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
And see, this is marvelous because some people at least
have the sense start of air and its water. Most
people don't think about things like topsoil. People start to
talk about the problem with bees, they're not being a biodiversity,
that the bees are dropping in population of bees, which
of course means things don't get pollinated and then hey,
what do we eat? But you don't hear people talk

(32:40):
about topsoil, which is so incredibly fragile, and people don't
realize that it's that literally, that top inch is what
makes soil what we think of a soil, and that
if you plan to grow food anywhere, you cannot destroy
all of the topsoil and walk away, and that destroying
topsoil will kill you just as completely polluting the air

(33:01):
and water. Well, people don't talk about that. They don't
realize how important the top soil is.

Speaker 4 (33:07):
It needs to be.

Speaker 3 (33:08):
We need to learn how to reproduce it. And that's
what our project does. It re establishes the biome that
is either dormant or has been destroyed, and in so
doing it begins after a great deal of curate curation.

(33:30):
It begins to establish re establish itself so it can
stand on its own and it will reproduce itself. But
it needs a great deal of care in the very beginnings.
But it is possible to turn over some of this
land rapidly, which is of course in the Third world,
which is really the majority of the planet. They need

(33:53):
to eat now they can't weight for three years and
let something else happen. They need alternatives to everything that
is being destroyed around them that they don't realize they've
participated in.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
But I love what you're talking about. That you can't
you can't just go in and say, well, we're just
going to fix this here, right, What do we do
about next week's crop and the food we are planning
and eating? Oh, well, you'll just go off and figure
that one out. We're going to fix this. And you
are just like a byproduct of this that you're saying, no, no,
you live here. How do we keep the people who
are actually here alive and the animals and the butt

(34:33):
that you're working with the people who are living there
to say, how do we make this happen? How do
we make this good for you, good for us. Here's
what's going on that no one is telling you. You're
living there and wondering why you get your farm stock,
you're going anywhere, And here's what's actually happening. Here's how
you're saving these animals will in fact benefit you and
your family and your neighbors. You're working with the population

(34:56):
with their society and say thing the outside elements that
the animals in the entire environment around them.

Speaker 3 (35:04):
Well, that's what we're hoping to do. Yes, we we
it's a it's a daily job. I've got a wonderful
staff there. I'm there half the year and and we
have a loyal following.

Speaker 4 (35:17):
If you can imagine eleven thousand.

Speaker 3 (35:19):
Students a year toile, we're meeting a demand that's ever increasing.
So this is a this today is Giving Tuesday, and
we're hoping to inspire people to look at our website,
look at our the work we're doing, and hopefully help

(35:40):
help us.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
Well that would be the obviest thing is how can
people help give us the website and make sure to
the show notes and everything.

Speaker 3 (35:47):
What the achronism the website is the acronism of the
acronym rather of the William Holden Wildlife Foundation.

Speaker 4 (35:55):
It's w h w F dot org.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
And everything you wanted to know about what we do
and what William Holden did and what I did and
what we did together is right there.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
It's fantas And so people can donate, like right now
for watching this, they can donate because I think I
don't think they know about this other project that you're doing.
And what more you're getting this what I think they
think of simply, oh, wildlife Foundation, wildlife, wildlife. They're not
thinking about people, top soil, everything else.

Speaker 4 (36:30):
It's it's it states very it states very well with
what we're what we're doing.

Speaker 3 (36:35):
And we posted today's options for people to easily be
able to to understand how they can contribute and what
their money does. Many many, many organizations take people's money
and a lot of it goes in overhead mm hmm.

Speaker 4 (36:55):
And I understand that because I've seen it all over
the world.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
Our organization works different works definitely because there is one
person who covers all the overheads of the operations, so
that I can.

Speaker 4 (37:09):
Absolutely look at you, even through.

Speaker 3 (37:11):
Zoom you in the eye and say that one hundred
percent of which you give me and you trust me,
goes to the work we do one hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
No one can say one hundred percent. Even people who
are very smart and say, well, we've reduced our overhead,
we don't have any extraneous unnecessary expenses, can say ninety
cents on the dollar, which is astounding. If people can
say that that, they can say we can give nineties
a donor, but one hundred percent your expenses are recovered.
One hundred percent. I feel like I'm doing a telethon now.
I want to one hundred percent of donations go directly

(37:44):
to the work.

Speaker 4 (37:45):
Yeah, it does. And I can say that with a
great authority because I'm the one who pays everything else. See.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
And this is when people say, do you put your
money where your mouth is to put mildly, you did?

Speaker 4 (38:02):
I did, Yes, you did.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
I don't know where any people who have done that.

Speaker 4 (38:08):
Well, I recommend it.

Speaker 1 (38:11):
And you live in Kenya but part of the year,
would you say you live in Kenya more often than
in the US, where usually.

Speaker 4 (38:18):
I'm about fifty to fifty.

Speaker 3 (38:21):
And then of course I sometimes work so and I
work in a lot in the theater in England.

Speaker 4 (38:30):
So once in a while I do a play.

Speaker 3 (38:33):
Or in television show or something in England, which is
very convenient because it's quite it's quite close. It only
takes me an overnight trip to get to England from Kenya,
so that's very convenient.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
You can commute, I can, yeh overnight. That's fantastic. You're
saying that at this point you actually have a dual
citizenship with Kenya, not citizenship, but you're full residency, right
because you're there half the year, you would have to
do that.

Speaker 4 (39:06):
Yes, I'm a dual resident.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
Wow, that's fantastic. This is absou. I see why you're
getting this. Now, Where can we get this book? The
Vision for the Future book? Because also has the founders well,
Carrie Kennedy, founder of the John F. Kennedy Human Rights
Eddie Bergman, co founder of Miracle Corners of the World.
I mean, it's all people have done amazing, amazing stuff.

(39:29):
Where do we get the book?

Speaker 4 (39:32):
It's all it's free, and it's online.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
It's free.

Speaker 4 (39:36):
It's a Vision for the Future.

Speaker 1 (39:39):
Is it If I go on Amazon? Can I locate
it there and download it? Or no?

Speaker 5 (39:43):
Just go on Google and the Google Vision for the
Future and there's its own website, so we can get that.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
Now. Do you have your own book? You have your
own book that you've written at some point? Did you?

Speaker 4 (39:58):
I did?

Speaker 2 (40:00):
It?

Speaker 4 (40:02):
Was it was a little while ago. It was after.

Speaker 3 (40:05):
It was after some major events that happened in my life,
and it was very much a catharsist to write about
things that had transpired. It's always it's always a very
personal experience to sit down and actually try to write

(40:26):
and inspire.

Speaker 4 (40:28):
People through telling your own tales.

Speaker 3 (40:33):
Hopefully they it was amusing as well, because a lot
of life is funny, and I don't take myself as
seriously in some regards as I do take the work
of the William Moulden Wildlife Foundation.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
Now is that book still out there?

Speaker 4 (40:52):
Yes? It is.

Speaker 3 (40:53):
Yes, you can still get it on Amazon. It's called
One from the Heart.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
One from the Heart excellent. I think you'll write a
second book.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
I've been up to but oh boy, it's hard work.
It's really hard work. And I wrote it myself. I
didn't have a co author.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
I know that people keep saying, are you writing a
second book? And I'm like a fork. What would you
say to people who are watching this now? Would you
say to people watching this now? I mean besides write
a check, immediately, go to the website, pack the credit card,
hit the button. What would say people watching this now
who are realizing all of these things and saying this

(41:33):
is incredible and yes, I mean our clock is ticking environmentally,
what would you say to people right now that what
they can start doing today that we'll actually will actually help,
will not just be an empty gesterre? What can people
start doing?

Speaker 4 (41:47):
Uh? What for us?

Speaker 1 (41:48):
For the environment in general.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
Oh well, be a little bit more thoughtful about what
you're disposing of and where it goes. And because all
of your plastics are going into the sea eventually, and
you're going if you eat fish, you're probably going to
eat some of that plastic back.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
That's happening now, they're finding microplastics in fish.

Speaker 3 (42:14):
Yeah, that's not coming from the sky. That's coming from us,
from human beings. So I think the first thing that
you can do is look at what you're eating and
what you're consuming and what you're buying, and try, you know,
try to take your own bags to the market, try
to amend, just use common sense and ammend some of

(42:36):
the ways in which you behave and the resources that
you use and purchase, especially young the young ladies, for
anybody who's listening, please look at the labels of what
you buy. I know that it's nice to have new
dresses and cheap new dresses that look good and then

(43:00):
you can throw them away.

Speaker 4 (43:02):
They're not going anywhere.

Speaker 3 (43:04):
They're going to be there because those miracle so called
fabrics that are cheap to produce are byproducts of the
petroleum industry. Is that what you want on your body
is that really healthy to have on your body. We're
all spandex and this and everything. You know, you really
look and be conscious of what you're buying. A This

(43:27):
is a bizarre thing to mention, but it was a
horrible thing that happened in the Balkan War. They killed
a lot of people and put.

Speaker 4 (43:37):
Them in mass graves.

Speaker 3 (43:39):
Last year when I was in England, they dug up
one of those massive graves and they were doing a.

Speaker 4 (43:47):
Documentary about it, and it was on the BBC.

Speaker 3 (43:51):
And what I was astonished about was that, yes, of course,
when they showed the trenches that they have excavated and
the bodies had decomposed, of course, but the clothing.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
Had not, Oh my god, and the sports.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
Hues were intact. So imagine that. It's not a pretty picture,
but that's what we do. We produce these horrible things
that we buy without thinking about what's the responsibility, where
does it go and how is it going to be

(44:29):
disposed of.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
Now we talk about recycling. Everyone has a recycling bit
and people take their metal and their glass and their plastics,
some of them to be recycled. How much of that works?
I know there are places that claim they're doing recycling,
and then you find out that they don't it in
landfill or they say, well, we can recycle, but only
certain items and some things aren't recyclable. What do we
do with that?

Speaker 4 (44:52):
What are the things that I really would suggest?

Speaker 3 (44:54):
And I think that one of the things that I'm
very disappointed that Apple as a company continually comes out
with brand new products for which you have to buy
all these accessories because you they always change the cores,
they always change the but they do not recycle.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
I do not stop.

Speaker 4 (45:17):
They don't say, all right, do you.

Speaker 3 (45:19):
Bring in your old stuff that I am now making
obsolete because I want you to buy this new stuff
and we will dispose of it.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
That would make sense. There's places that do that. You
can bring in your old thing and they will take
it back. Printers, I can take my old printer back
to the store and they'll take the printer and the
printer cartridges all the money.

Speaker 3 (45:39):
Oh yes, okay, one minute, sorry.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
I can take my my printer cartridges from a printer.
If I take them to the store, they send them
back and they will attempt to recycle, at least in
some form, the printer cartridges. They don't just go in
trash can. So there are companies that take stuff back,
So why can they not do that? You would think that, but.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
Actually also some of the sports shoe manufacturers organ what
was it there was there were two of the companies
that used to make a lot of money with basketball
players their shoes. There are certain companies now that are
making those shoes that are most of the components for

(46:26):
making those shoes are biodegradable because they've had pressure from
the consumers. So all we have to do is put
pressure on all of these companies that are making everything
we have obsolete in order to make more money by
us buying more stuff. If we're going to do that,
if we're going to buy all the new products are macro, fine,

(46:48):
but make sure that we demand that they recycle all
of the old stuff that they've made obsolete.

Speaker 1 (46:55):
Yeah, have us bring it in. We'll drop it in
the band at your store. We'll bring it in. But
ple yes, other companies aren't doing it. It's physically possible.
We know they've other companies have done it. We know
it can be.

Speaker 3 (47:07):
Done absolutely, but we have to demand it as as consumers.

Speaker 4 (47:13):
Because all of these follow the money.

Speaker 3 (47:16):
All of these companies are only out for profits. They
don't care about you the consumer. So if we the
consumer says uh uh, not going to buy your products
until you commit to recycling the ones that I have
that you may obsolete, that's a good idea.

Speaker 1 (47:37):
And that that teams are rather simple requests too. I
don't see why that wouldn't work.

Speaker 4 (47:43):
Well, I'll start a movement.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
All right, Well by the petition, But this is this
is just amazing. What is your next project? Is there
a next project on top of all of these? What
would you say was the next thing for you?

Speaker 4 (47:59):
Well, right now we are.

Speaker 3 (48:02):
I'm working with a number of university so that we
can have overseas students, overseas master's degree candidates and PhD
candidates come and study with us our methods of soil regeneration,
and hopefully we will be able to, out of their studies,

(48:26):
create a protocol that kind of establishes how you actually
do it, how it can be done in most cases.
Do you remember when everything came out and it was
everything was supposed to be organic. Yeah, all of a sudden,
it wasn't just organic food. It was organic hairspray, organic shampoo, organic.

Speaker 4 (48:48):
But there was no proof.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
Well, they just put that on the label. They just
put it on the label.

Speaker 3 (48:54):
Where the would say, okay, it's made of avocados or
there's some.

Speaker 4 (48:58):
Something natural in it.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
But to actually have a protocol where you say, this
is how you've proven that this is absolutely organic or
that this is absolutely stial regeneration.

Speaker 4 (49:14):
So we want to create that.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
A standard criteria and we want to create the protocol.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
For that, and that way it can be taken. It
can be taken all over the world. These these students
can then take this and recreate this process all over
the world.

Speaker 4 (49:29):
That's the hope. Yes, that's the hope.

Speaker 3 (49:32):
It's not some information that we want to guard for
ourselves and monetize somehow.

Speaker 4 (49:37):
We want it to go out and we want people
to embrace it.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
All right, Okay, so if they want to read about you,
where is your website WWF dot org. All right, so
everyone go there now, and you know it's Christmas. Maybe
you could give in somebody's name. You know, it's the
Christmas gift. I'm thinking, I'm thinking this could be a
good gift. And thank you. You are amazing. I'm still

(50:02):
going with you may be the smartest person in the world.
So Stephanie powers, Yes girl from Uncle Heart Tart and
smartest person in the world. Thank you so much for
coming on my show. I'm gonna have to have you
come back. This has just been delightful.

Speaker 4 (50:17):
Thank you, Alis. Lovely to see you all right.

Speaker 1 (50:19):
Thank you so much. Congratulations on your rewards. So thank you,
thank you, and this has been the Alison Ergam Show.
And yep, I'm still Allison Aringram. Thank you.

Speaker 4 (50:32):
I'm